


The Belle Jar

by marchionessofblackadder



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-01
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-13 07:39:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marchionessofblackadder/pseuds/marchionessofblackadder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a mysterious bit of magic goes awry, Henry Mills shows up at Mr. Gold's shop one sleepy afternoon with a discovery that will quite change the course of the curse breaking. Does true love really come in all shapes and sizes?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tiny and Tenderhearted

Mr. Gold could not have imagined a quieter day that rainy afternoon in Storybrooke, Maine. Their cursed corner of the world was sleepy under the light mist that washed the streets and the sharp cold that blew in with it. So it was to his surprise that anything out of the ordinary might happen while he sat behind the cash register and kept his ledger of loans, and it was even more startling when it happened in the form of young Henry Mills shouldering his way into the antiques shop.  
  
“Good afternoon, Henry. To what do I owe the pleasure?” asked Mr. Gold, smiling gently at the bright eyed boy’s face. He did not get many visits from young Mr. Mills, but he did enjoy him, no matter how much he reminded him of his own son. He was a sharp child, bits of his mother and grandparents sparkling through at the best of times. Rain droplets dusted his winter coat and school pack, and as he approached the counter, Gold leaned his elbows on the glass pane and clasped his hands together, pointing at the young one. “Especially it not being three o’clock yet.”  
  
Henry winced, curling his thumbs beneath the straps of his backpack. He glanced over his shoulder to the door before looking back at Mr. Gold, and it was only then that the shadowy antique dealer noticed the genuine concern in the boy’s face. “What’s the matter, lad?”  
  
“I need help,” Henry said haltingly, pausing before gently setting down his backpack. He then turned and ran back to the door, peeking out through the panes before flipping the sign from “Open” to “Closed.”  
  
Mr. Gold tilted his head as Henry walked back, taking note that he seemed to have something bulky hidden inside his windbreaker. When he met Mr. Gold’s gaze, Henry looked near tears. “I know who you are, Mr. Gold,” he paused, taking a moment to look down and rub his eyes with a little child’s fists, sniffling. “I know you’re Rumpelstiltskin.”  
  
The name alone was enough to knock the breath from him, but he remained impassive, his smile gentle. “Is this- ah, Operation Viper?”  
  
“Cobra.”  
  
“Right, of course.”  
  
“No, not really,” Henry looked miserable, wrapping his arms around the front of himself. “See, I was helping Miss Blanchard at the hospital and- and I did something... bad,” Mr. Gold just nodded for him to continue, and the boy bit his lip for a long moment before mumbling, “Can you keep a secret?”  
  
Mr. Gold stared at the child before him, his throat tightening. “Henry, if you’re in trouble or hurt, you need to find your mother-”  
  
“No!” Henry shook his head quickly, his brown eyes going wide. “She’d never believe me!”  
  
“Believe what, lad?” Mr. Gold leaned forward, furrowing his brow. He was racking his brain to think of what this could entail, but the last he’d heard on the matter, Henry was quite happy with his birth mother being elected as Sheriff. “I’m sure it’s not bad as all that.”  
  
Henry’s eyes welled up with tears, his lip trembling. “I think I killed her!”  
  
Mr. Gold startled at the words, his knee banging against the wooden siding of the counter, rattling the delicate treasures within. He groaned and leaned over himself, his hand immediately grasping his knee in pain, and hissed as he tried to massage the feeling back into it. He was only dimly aware of Henry unzipping his jacket and setting something atop the counter.  
  
When Mr. Gold looked up, eye level with the counter, what he saw stopped his heart.  
  
It was a glass butterfly jar, and inside it lay a very small sleeping girl, no bigger than the size of his thumb.  
  
It was Rumpelstiltskin’s true love.   
  
An extremely and very tiny, little Belle.  
  
For a long moment, he had no words, simply staring at the little thing within the jar. She was curled up on her side, her head pillowed in her arms and knees tucked up to her chest. Her mass of brown curls concealed her face, but he’d recognize her anywhere.  
  
“I didn’t mean to, I swear,” Henry whispered fearfully at the older man’s silence, his words falling out of him. “I just could hear her in that basement so I tried to open it and when I did, something happened, a crash and a huge whooshing sound and then the door fell in and she was shrinking and I couldn’t stop it and then she seemed to get really dizzy and fell down!”  
  
Mr. Gold stared at the jar, looking between his tiny sleeping love to the teary eyed boy in front of him. After a dazed moment of listening to the blood rush in his ears, Gold curled his fingers over the handle of his cane as he scooted closer to the counter, swallowing hard. When he spoke, his voice was hushed as he leant his chin to hover above the counter, looking in at the little thing beyond the glass. “You didn’t kill her, lad. She’s asleep.”  
  
Henry seemed about to pass out, leaning his chin on the counter opposite Gold, whispering, “Are you sure?”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin nodded, tilting his head to the side as he watched the tiny creature. She was definitely breathing, slow and deep. A million questions raced through his mind at what this could mean, why it had happened, how it was possible, but the only thought that rang above all the others was the simple fact his Belle was alive and unharmed.  
  
Tiny, but whole.  
  
After an intense moment of just staring at the sleeping girl, Henry raised his face up, both hands curling on the edge of the counter. “Is this... it’s magic, isn’t it?”  
  
Mr. Gold nodded absentmindedly, nigh physically unable to tear his eyes away. Thousands of questions and possibilities ran through his mind. In the very precise layout of the curse and it's breaking, this had never been something he had prepared for. What did one say when their once-dead lover returned alive, the size of their thumb? He looked at the boy, mouth dry as a bone, and grappled for one question at a time, asking, “Henry... how- why did you come to _me_ with her?”  
  
“She told me to,” Henry said honestly, sliding his hands into his pockets. “Right before she fainted, she told me to find Rumpelstiltskin. It took me awhile to figure it out, but...”  
  
Mr. Gold nodded, rubbing his mouth in thought. “And you said she was in the basement of the hospital?”  
  
Henry nodded the affirmative. “I tried opening the door, and when I did, it... I don’t know what happened, actually,” he winced. “It was like the door exploded or something.”  
  
“Interesting,” Mr. Gold waited a beat, glancing back down at Belle in her jar before looking up at Henry. “Well, that’ll be all.”  
  
“Wait- what!”  
  
“Off with you, lad, I have work to do. Obviously.”  
  
“But-” Mr. Gold walked around the counter and reached down to hand the boy his backpack. “Wait- how does she know you? Who is she? Are you going to help her get back to her regular size?”  
  
“She is none of your concern now, Henry,” Mr. Gold said patiently.  
  
“Mr. Gold, I just gave you a tiny person in a jar. The least you could do is answer my questions.”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin frowned down at him, knowing he was right. The boy did know, and was going to ultimately be the key to getting the savior to believe the truth of the curse. Was it not for the young Mr. Mills, he would not know Belle was in such a state- let alone was still  alive . His thoughts must have played out on his face, because Henry beamed up at him. “You owe me.”  
  
“It seems so. Fine,” Rumpelstiltskin put his hand on the boy’s back as they walked slowly to the door. The words were harder to speak aloud than he anticipated. “In... in the enchanted forest, she was my caretaker.”   
  
Henry frowned in thought. “What’s her name?”  
  
Mr. Gold withdrew his hand and flipped the sign back to “open.” Leave it to the golden grandchild of Prince Charming and Snow White to be so damn inquisitive and ask all the right questions. With a pained sigh, Mr. Gold muttered, “Henry, you know you mustn't tell a soul about this.”  
  
“Not even Emma?”  
  
“No, especially not your mother,” Mr. Gold paused, glancing out the window. “She’s not really ready. If we want to get her to believe, it must be thought through and tactful.”  
  
“Right, tactful, that’s a good idea,” Henry nodded seriously, his hands holding onto the straps of his backpack before looking up at Mr. Gold. “But what was her name?”  
  
His heart, as old and unbeating as it often times felt, strained in his chest at the thought alone. When he turned to the young boy to answer, a small clinking sound from across the room froze them both in their places.  
  
“Belle!” a tiny voice called out, muted against glass. Both sorcerer and prince turned to see the tiny girl in the jar rapping her fists against the container and hopping up and down. “My name is Belle!”  
  
Henry was there in a flash, leaning up on the counter and popping the lid of the jar open. Mr. Gold hurried right behind him, moving back around the counter as Henry tipped the jar over slowly and carefully so that Belle could step out. She put her hands on the rim to steady herself, yet somehow still tripped across the edge. Rumpelstiltskin put his hand out quickly to catch her before she could roll off the side of the counter, his heart beating like a hammer as he caught his little love.   
  
Belle threw her arms around his thumb for a moment to regain her balance as he lifted his hand up to eye level. His girl, once dead, was alive and in the palm of his hand.  
  
“Belle?” Rumpelstiltskin’s voice shook perilously.  
  
The girl blew matted, fly away brown curls out of her eyes, throwing them over her shoulder while keeping one arm firmly around his thumb as she leaned against it before beaming up at him with the brightest eyes he’d ever seen since she’d pulled down his curtains. “Hello, Rum!”  
  
“Her name is Belle?” Henry deadpanned. “As in the lady from  _Beauty and the Beast_?”  
  
“Are you alright, dearie?” Rumpelstiltskin asked softly, trying to steady his hand to keep from shaking as he held her. “How do you feel?”  
  
“A little dizzy,” she admitted, sagging against his thumb until she sat down.  
  
Against everything he was feeling, Rumpelstiltskin smiled and felt his eyes sting. “You’re real- you’re alive,” he whispered, sitting back on the stool at the counter.  
  
“Of course I am,” Belle laughed before wrapping her other arm around his thumb and hugging tightly, pressing her cheek to his skin. “Did you think me a dream, Rumpelstiltskin?”  
  
“Oh, I always have,” Mr. Gold whispered softly, his chest hurting in the most exquisite way. She’d always possessed the power of giving him the most tender of heartbeats.  
  
“Wait,” Henry put his hands up on the counter. “You mean... you mean you’re the beast?”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin shot Henry a dirty look, but Belle turned to look at the other person in the room and smiled brightly. “Oh, hello again!” Belle scooted across Rumpelstiltskin’s hand until she sat with her legs swinging off the side of his palm. “Thank you so much- I didn’t think anyone would ever hear me down there.”  
  
Henry looked sheepish, “Sorry about your size.”  
  
“You tried to save me,” Belle said comfortingly. Leave it to his Belle to be able to comfort others when she was the one who’d been changed and manipulated by magic-again-against her will.  
  
“I hope we can find a way to make you normal sized again,” Henry said hopefully, then smiled shyly. “I’m Henry- Henry Mills.”  
  
“Oh,” Belle paused, glancing up at Rumpelstiltskin for help.  
  
“The grandchild of Snow White and Prince James,” Mr. Gold supplied kindly.  
  
“Right,” Belle nodded before smiling back at Henry. “Very nice to meet you, Mr. Mills.”  
  
“So...” Henry glanced between the two of them, his eyes scrutinizing. “Does this mean you’re Rumpelstiltskin’s true love?”  
  
Mr. Gold was sure he could’ve heard a pin drop in the room, and reflexively went very still at the words. Belle tilted her head, keeping her little back to him at all times as she kicked her feet back and forth in the air. “Well,” she murmured doubtfully, and was only barely loud enough for him to hear. “Well, yes,” she sounded so nervous that Rumpelstiltskin felt his heart constrict. Then again, reflecting upon their last encounter, he was surprised that she could find it in herself to even talk about love, let alone admit she still felt it for an old twisted monster like him. Even the size of a doll, she was braver than he could ever hope to be. “Yes, I am.”  
  
“Why were you in the basement?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Belle shrugged gently, glancing back over her shoulder at Rumpelstiltskin. He slowly lowered his hand to the counter and let her step off his palm, brushing her what he then realized was a hospital gown off. Her grey wool tights and white shoes made her appear even clumsier than he remembered. “I’ve just always been there as far as I can remember, until I heard you in the hallway and... now, here I am.”  
  
That was something Gold would be investigating very, very soon.  
  
“Is there...” Henry paused, looking up at Mr. Gold. “Is there anything I can do?”  
  
“You’ve done the most of anyone I know, m’boy,” Rumpelstiltskin said, looking down at Belle as she hopped over the lid of the jar, peering down into the glass case at the twinkling treasures below. “I thought she was gone forever.”  
  
Belle looked up at him quickly, her eyes widening, but she bit her lip instead of asking questions, though he could tell she wanted to. There were hundreds of questions he wanted answers for, too, but there would be time for that. For the time being, his true love was in a dire need of proper clothing, food, and something warmer to wear, and those were all problems he felt took priority first. In such a large, cursed world, anything and everything could happen, and with his true love as tiny as a fairy, Rumpelstiltskin would protect his little Belle until he could find a way to break her spell, just as she had for him once upon a time.


	2. Delicate Doll

“What is all of this?” Belle asked, perched on Gold’s shoulder as he lifted one of the heavier chests up onto his desk in his office. After Henry had left, she had argued with him for a good long while on being able to sit there beside him, yet the little minx had still gotten her way. His stipulation had been that she would have to remain seated, as he couldn’t have her tumbling all around his workshop. It helped when she held onto a strand or two of his hair, reminding him that she was there. He sat the chest atop the desk and she huffed, tugging gently on his hair, “Have you always been such a magpie? I don’t recall half of these things from before, in our world.”  
  
“Magic helped keep things organized,” Mr. Gold admitted, smiling fondly at her nagging as he unlatched the chest and opened the lid, much to Belle’s delighted gasp. “Yes, I remember there being some suitable things in here. At least for the time being.”   
  
The toy chest was old, the toys in it even older, but that worked in their favor. These toys were smaller, more tailored to Belle’s unique size, unlike the ghastly dolls this world had called Barbies. After scrounging around in the bottom, Gold pulled out a small doll made of straw with a very plain little dress. It was robin blue. He held it up for her inspection and Belle smiled shyly and nodded, “Oh yes, I like it.”   
  
“At least until I can procure something more appropriate,” Rumpelstiltskin allotted, slipping the doll out of the little bit of cloth. He had spare fabric all over the shop, and his skills with a thread and needle were more than adequate. With clothing patterns running through his mind, Rumpelstiltskin hardly noticed Belle sliding down his arm until she tumbled across his hand over the counter. “Oof!”   
  
Belle rolled twice before she was able to gather herself up, but Gold had already jumped and rushed to crouch over her, panicked. “Belle, are you-”  
  
“I’m fine,” Belle giggled, shaking her head up at him. “Really, Rumpelstiltskin! I’m tiny, but I’m not going to break.”  
  
Mr. Gold took a deep, patient breath, his hands resting on the edge of the chest and pursing his lips. “We can debate that later,” he muttered, shaking his head as he looked back down into the toys. He pinched the dress up and held it out to Belle, who reached up and took it. It was a little big, he could tell already, and she paused, looking from the dress back up to him. It took Gold a long moment before he realized what she was waiting for. “Oh- right-” Grappling for his cane, he stood up and hurried out of the back room, making sure the curtain fell heavily behind him, clearing to let Belle change.  
  
And wasn’t that a thought he was sure to never have.   
  
Belle was changing in his office. The concept still dazed him, and the fact that she was alive still hadn’t quite sunk in. He was sure he would wake up any moment and that the entire afternoon would prove to just be a dizzying dream. He would be looking into the ward of the hospital the boy had found her in, and find out who exactly had pull in that department. Why had he never heard of it?  
  
Frowning, his mind running through everything he needed to do and trying not to feel overwhelmed with the fact his little Belle had been alive all this time without his knowledge, Mr. Gold almost didn’t hear her little voice call out, “Rum?”  
  
He flung the curtain back and limped over the threshold, rounding over to the desk. He swallowed nervously, afraid of walking in on her at an inappropriate moment. To his relief, she stood barefoot but wearing the dress, beaming up at him shyly. It was hanging off of her, and reached so far past her toes that it puddled about her body. “I need a little help,” she admitted, looking down.  
  
“Well,” he cleared his throat, knocking the rasp out as he slowly sat in his chair. “Let’s see what we have to work with, hm?”  
  
Belle shuffled over towards him and Gold pulled out his magnifying glass. Mr. Gold smiled briefly at her, his heart hurting at seeing her smile again- for him. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, “Twirl for me, darling.”  
  
Belle lifted her hair and did a quick twirl, clumsy though, the fabric tripping her up and hanging open in the back. Mr. Gold couldn’t smother his laugh when she fell over herself, her hair flying everywhere as she landed in a puddle of fabric. She huffed, shoving herself up, all elbows and knees, “Don’t laugh!” She was smiling though. “It’s bigger than we thought.”  
  
“Don’t worry. If it’s anything I know, it’s the fine points.”  
  
Less than half an hour later, Belle twirled again, this time in a makeshift sundress that brushed her mid calves and cinched at the small of her back, making a little bustle. “It’s perfect!” she squealed, and loped up to him, jumping atop his hand. Mr. Gold let her slide into his palm, swallowing hard when she hugged his thumb so tightly. “Thank you, Rum,” she smiled up at him.  
  
“Hush now,” Mr. Gold murmured, his throat tightening with emotion. “You... you’re back, yes? I promise- Belle, I’m not going to-” he paused, struggling for the right words and the good words, what he knew he should say and what he wanted to say. A sigh escaped him, and he felt his shoulders droop, his voice quiet, “I’m going to protect you this time, Belle,” he vowed, and such a little thing she was, yet he was afraid to raise his eyes to her. He was ever the coward (for no matter how long time had enslaved them, she had been right, that would never change). Yet she was size of a minute and had the heart of a lion. He doubted he would ever feel worthy to raise his eyes to her again, “I promise.”  
  
Belle tilted her head up at him, keeping one arm around his thumb as she slowly kicked her feet back and forth off the edge of his palm. Her face crinkled in emotion, smiling gently, “Don’t be sad, please,” she whispered, leaning her cheek against his thumb. “We can talk about that- we’ll talk about everything, won’t we?”  
  
Mr. Gold nodded, his throat hurting too much to speak.  
  
“Tell me what’s happened,” Belle said, curling up in his palm, folding her feet beneath her like a mermaid. Mr. Gold only had a moment’s hesitation before nodding reluctantly, taking a deep breath and launching into the tale of the curse. He told her everything he could remember, everything he knew, suspected, and anticipated. Belle listened with attentiveness and patience, thoughtful in his descriptions, though he avoided looking at her when he explained about the origins of the curse itself.  
  
“So you only remembered... when Miss Swan arrived,” Belle surmised, pouting as she mused aloud, “And she is young Henry’s mother?”  
  
There were so many details that Mr. Gold found himself more than impressed with Belle for getting everything straight, but he also knew he shouldn’t have been surprised. She was always clever. Sighing, Gold nodded, “Indeed. She’s quite a stubborn woman, I’ll give her that much,” he smirked, shaking his head. “More hard headed than she’s worth, I imagine.”  
  
Belle’s face fell for a moment, and she seemed just on the edge of asking something she didn’t want to when the cuckoo clock on the wall chimed the hour. “Goodness me,” Gold tutted, sitting back in his chair. “Time to close up shop.”  
  
“You don’t live here?”  
  
Mr. Gold startled, looking down at the little thing in his hand. “No- no, I have a home.”  
  
“Oh.” Belle looked at him oddly.  
  
Mr. Gold turned sheepish, feeling uneasy. “Is... is that a problem?”  
  
“Of course not!” Belle exclaimed, bouncing up to her feet, still holding tight to his thumb. “It’s just- it’s funny to me, you not living close to your collection. I’m not used to it.”  
  
“I keep what’s important close to me,” Mr. Gold murmured before lifting her up and dropping Belle into the pocket of his suit, smiling at the melody of her little giggle, muffled by his pocket square. Belle pushed herself up, folding her arms over the hem of the pocket, but Gold stopped, frowning, “Now you just stay in there.”  
  
“But I want to see out!”  
  
“I can’t have you falling out, Belle,” Mr. Gold sighed. “If you fall, I could step on you.”  
  
“I’ll be careful,” Belle huffed, ruffling her nose up at him as he locked the back door and turned the light off, walking out into the storefront.  
  
“Like you were with the ladder, I imagine,” Mr. Gold smirked, locking the cash register and putting the ledgers away. He heard Belle make an indignant grunt and he chuckled, locking the side door and display cases he’d opened earlier. After everything was shut and stored away, he gathered his coat and scarf from the coat rack, careful to not smother Belle beneath the fabric. He could feel her wriggling in his pocket. He paused, straightening his scarf. “All right, darling?”  
  
“Yes!” came the muffled reply. “I’m just getting warm.”  
  
Locking the shop door behind him, Gold took his time getting into the car, more mindful than ever that there was a little person in his pocket. He was nervous of course of anything happening to Belle. She always seemed to be at death’s door in her normal size- falling off ladders, starting fires, talking to dangerous strangers- now with her so small, ordinary tasks could be perilous. He’d have to find her ways to be comfortable and safe, a way for her to not feel restricted but perhaps something suitable-  
  
And then, an idea.  
  
“Dearie, we’re going to take a detour on our way home, but you must be quiet,” Mr. Gold said, starting the car. A little shriek cut through the fabric of his coat, and Gold nearly went through the Cadillac’s roof. “What- what is it-!” He pulled his coat back quickly, looking down to see a panic-stricken and frightened wide eyed Belle gazing up at him, trembling so hard her entire figure was shaking against the pocket square.  
  
“Was that a dragon!” she cried, scrambling for a moment as if debating whether or not she should climb out.  
  
“What?” Gold asked, dumbfounded.  
  
“That noise, that monstrous noise!”   
  
“The car?” Mr. Gold slumped back in his seat, his heart doubling over in ease of realization. He leaned his head back, taking a deep breath, letting the nervous laughter rack his body in relief, “Oh, Belle, dearie...”  
  
Belle hopped in his pocket, “Rumpelstiltskin, what was that? Stop laughing at me!”  
  
The entire drive across town, Mr. Gold took his time in explaining with as much detail as he could muster the development and use of automobiles. He should have been more considerate and thought through the notion of taking her into a car, in her state, everything was louder and bigger and probably more frightening- and that alone gave him ideas. Most others had vague concepts of what modern makings and inventions were and how they were used. Yet Belle had not a clue. Belle, of course, was scratching at his pocket to get out and inspect everything for herself, but Gold made it very clear she was not to move about while he was driving for not just her safety but the fact that it was extremely dangerous to drive while distracted (which would be his condition, should she try to tumble about the inside of his car while he drove).   
  
“Well, where are we going?” Belle finally asked.  
  
“There’s something I need to get,” Mr. Gold said after a moment, pausing. “Just stay within, dearie. I’ll only be a moment.”  
  
“But why can’t I look out?”  
  
It was fortunate Mr. Gold’s eyes were trained resolutely on the road, for he knew if he chanced a look down at his little Belle, she’d squirm her way into getting exactly what she wanted with her pretty blue eyes and sad little smile. “Because I can’t have the denizens of Storybrooke wondering why I’m talking to myself, much less the little woman in my pocket, now can I?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Belle said thoughtfully. “I think it’d make for a wonderful story.”  
  
“Let’s keep it between us and wee Henry, shall we?”  
  
Belle huffed unhappily. “If you say so.”  
  
“I do. Now hush, we’re here.”  
  
By the time Mr. Gold got home, it was a bit of a challenge carrying the heavy parcel he’d paid little Paige for. Balancing that whilst trying to unlock his front door, mindful of Belle in his pocket, it was only a matter of time before he fell and hurt not just himself but Belle, too. Once he’d finally gotten inside and shut the door behind him, setting his purchase upon the dining room table, Belle was climbing the wall of his pocket to get out. “I want to see!” she cried in frustration.  
  
Mr. Gold sighed noisily, his patience wearing thin. “Just a moment, dearie.”   
  
“I’ve been in here for hours, Rum.”  
  
“Belle it hasn’t been half an hour since we left the shop.”  
  
After a long pause, Belle huffed, “Well it feels like hours.”  
  
“Just give me a moment,” he said, moving about the dining room. He grabbed a cloth and some polish and set to work, dusting and cleaning the object with precision and care, pretending to miss Belle’s impatient sighs and not feel her restless wriggling in his pocket. After a few extra long minutes, really to make her wait and squirm even more, Mr. Gold shrugged out of his coat and took a deep breath, “All right, darling, come on out.”  
  
Belle popped up like a daisy out of his pocket, pulling herself up only to gasp in delight and climb over the edge to tumble out. Gold dropped his cane in his haste to catch her, crying in dismay, but Belle could not be bothered with the fact she’d almost fallen to her death, wriggling joyously in his hand, “You bought- you bought me a house!”  
  
Mr. Gold felt his face burn, pursing his lips against saying anything as he set Belle gently down on the table in front of Paige’s old toy. The dollhouse was two stories, an antique Victorian style with powder blue siding and white trim. The furniture inside was just as old as the structure itself, but it had chairs, a table, and a little bed that would be suitable to Belle’s particular size, he gauged. Belle turned around, looking up at him with her hands clasped to her chest. “Oh, Rumpelstiltskin.”  
  
Mr. Gold shifted uneasily from one foot to the other and was able to mumble, “Just... to see that you’re comfortable, dearie.”  
  
Belle flitted up to the little front door and opened it, peeking inside. For the next half hour, Belle explored the little house while Mr. Gold cooked dinner, reheating a simple bowl of chicken noodle soup. When he walked back into the dining room, Belle was sitting on the edge of the table, kicking her feet and looking around at all the things collected in his own house, the china cabinet, the portraits and paintings, the book shelves and musical instruments and various trinkets.  
  
“Oh, that smells wonderful,” she said, hopping up and skipping over to where he pulled his chair out. “What is it?”  
  
“Chicken soup,” Mr. Gold paused, observing his tiny true love for a moment before dipping the spoon in and holding it up. “Here, try it.”  
  
With taking the utmost care, Belle raised herself on her tiptoes, blew on the broth, and sipped from the spoon. “Oh, that tastes so good,” she sighed hurrying over to his elbow to borrow the corner of his napkin to pat her face. “We only ever had protein mix for food in the hospital. It was terrible.”  
  
Mr. Gold felt his face pull, flinching at the words that did not go together. “Well no more of that.”  
  
They spent their first dinner together like that, Gold letting Belle take soup in small sips from his own spoon, talking quietly about gentle subjects, mostly about the town and the state of affairs, things that would not upset either of them until Belle declared herself full in the middle of a yawn. After he put the dishes away, Gold sat Belle on his shoulder and carried the doll house up stairs to his bedroom, sitting it on the low dresser. Belle hopped from his shoulder into his hand and let him set her delicately in the little bedroom. She paused, swaying for a moment before looking up at him. “You’ll be able to fix me,” she said softly, sadly, her blue eyes shining with something that was not quite mirth. “Right, Rum?”  
  
Mr. Gold hesitated, his heart turning so very heavily. Because the truth was, he didn’t know if he could. Magic was in short supply in their world, what with the curse and Emma Swan still so far from believing. He had no resources with which to figure out a way to revert Belle back to her normal size. Swallowing hard, he only nodded and said, “All in due time, dearie.”  
  
Belle smiled warmly, “Good.” She turned and climbed up into the little bed, and Mr. Gold smiled faintly as she maneuvered to get comfortable, huffing, “It’s not very soft, Rum.”  
  
“I’ll fix it,” he said quietly, turning and going into the adjoining bathroom. After dressing for bed, he turned off the light, so very acutely aware of his little Belle sleeping across the room from him. He tried to relax, tried to pause his thoughts and rein in the emotions that accompanied them when one’s true love came back from the dead, reverted and changed and twisted by magic yet again to suit the purposes of others.  
  
But he would fix it. He would fix everything.  
  
That was the last thing Mr. Gold thought of before slipping into sleep, and before his little love scaled the bedclothes to climb atop his pillow, curling up near his cheek to sleep as close beside him as she could.


	3. Bite-Sized

Mr. Gold wasn’t ticklish by nature, but a little fluttering near his neck was irritating enough to rouse him from the deepest sleep he’d had in weeks. He shifted in bed, swatting at his neck, but the small, answering voice that squeaked “Oof!” was more striking than a bucket of ice water thrown over him. Mr. Gold flew up in bed, eyes wide and heart hammering only to see his little love tumble down his chest and fall end over end on the top of the bed sheets, landing by his knee.  
  
“Belle!” he choked, scrambling forward to push the sheets out of the way. “Belle- are you alright, love?”  
  
Belle rolled over, her hair a nest of matted brown curls and her makeshift dress unsightly wrinkled. She stumbled for a moment not unlike a miniature drunkard, leaning against his knee with a puff of air. “Oh, I’m woozy,” she murmured, putting her hand to her head before looking up at him. “That was a tumble, Rum...”  
  
“Why were you up here?” he asked softly, putting his hand out and letting her step up into his palm where she plopped down. He cupped his hand so she could rest her back against his fingers, careful to not jostle her too much. “You shouldn’t- you shouldn’t do that, Belle, I could’ve rolled over and hurt you- or threw you off by accident-”  
  
Belle blushed bright red, her feet curling as she looked down at her hands twisting in her dress, bashfully confessing, “I just wanted to be close to you.”  
  
The knot that formed in his throat was so tight that Mr. Gold could hardly breathe. Staring at the little thing in his palm, it felt as though all that time ago, all those years wasted were melting away. It was the same feeling he’d had when she’d fallen from the curtains, the sunshine washing out the darkness and leaving nothing but something pure hearted and warm and accepting in place. How was it someone so small could bend one of the most powerful men in the world?  
  
And looking into her face, she seemed to anticipate him to rebuke her all over again and that more than anything turned his heart so painfully he had to force himself calm. He was positively humming with the energy, the need to tell her everything he owed her. Instead, he whispered, “Perhaps it would be best if you let me know next time,” he tried to smile, though it felt weak and watery. “Don’t want you getting tangled up in my hair, now do we?”  
  
Wriggling in his palm until she could sit up on her knees, Belle pushed her hair behind her ears and nodded. “I promise.”  
  
“Ah- what were you even doing?” he asked, rubbing his neck. He was so unused to physical contact, his skin still tingled.  
  
Belle pursed her lips to suppress a self indulgent smile, looking down at her hands shyly. “You... well, your cheek is scruffy,” the words came out in a babbling rush. “You never- you didn’t look like this before, and I just- I was curious, you see, you look so different but you’re still you, and I was just, I didn’t know since you look so human now if I could-oh, dear,” Belle took a deep breath, flailing her hands at her sides. “I just wanted to kiss your cheek-” she looked up, biting her lip, trying to duck her head while meeting his eyes, “Please... please don’t be upset.”  
  
The idea that she feared his wrath over a kiss on the cheek was devastating, but not undeserved and he bore it with solemnity. Considering how he’d treated her their last few moments together, he felt it false to try to deny that he would be upset. Instead, he found himself a hesitant smile buried somewhere behind the empty space of his heart that she had left when she’d gone, and pressed his finger to his lips and held it out.  
  
Belle stared at him for a moment before her eyes lit like flickering candles, and she smiled his favorite dimpled smile, leaned up and kissed his finger in return.  
  
For a moment they sat in companionable silence, Mr. Gold’s eyes falling down to the buttons on his nightshirt, Belle rocking back on her heels in his palm until she sat with her legs crossed. It was warm and quiet and comfortable, with neither of them wanting anything in particular besides to remain as close as they could. The moment was broken when Belle reached forward and patted the heel of Mr. Gold’s hand, asking, “Rum?”  
  
His eyes flew up to meet her sweet little face. “Yes, my love?”  
  
With a sheepish wince, she said, “I’m hungry.”  
  
“Of course-” with a careful movement, he deposited her on his shoulder, and didn’t move until he felt her definite little tug of his hair to let him know she was seated. He then threw off the covers, gathered his cane and slipped his feet into his slippers. He was careful in his trip down the stairs, mindful of the little girl on his shoulder as he leaned on his cane.  
  
“Your leg? Is it hurt?” Belle asked, and her sweet voice was so close to his ear, he could almost hear her as she once was.  
  
“An old injury,” Mr. Gold waved a hand, turning down the stairs slowly. “More tedious than anything, I promise.”  
  
A quiet moment passed before Belle asked in a soft murmur, “What happened?”  
  
Mr. Gold reached the kitchen before he found the words to say, and the dignity with which to say them. “From my time at war, dearie, long before we ever met,” he lifted his hand to his shoulder and Belle hopped down into his palm and let him set her on the island counter. He watched her step carefully, tripping on the cold granite top before she turned to look up at him, wringing her hands in front of her. He ducked his face away, walking to the refrigerator. “The first war against the ogres.”  
  
“Was... was this when you still had your son?”  
  
Mr. Gold paused, swallowing hard as he pulled out eggs and butter. “Yes. He was a baby at the time.”  
  
Belle loped across the counter, squeezing her way between the salt and pepper shakers until she stood near his elbow, climbing up atop the coffee cannister. “What was his name?” she asked, and Gold could hear her forced brightness, the false cheer she pushed into her voice.   
  
He loved her for it more than he could ever say.  
  
And he owed her this story, they both knew it. Glancing up at her, he frowned for a moment and took a step away so that he lit the pilot light farthest from her spot atop the coffee, taking a skillet down from the rack and heating it. He knew he owed her this story, and the look on her face, gentle and curious and knowing all at the same time, she knew it too. He bid his time while putting toast in the toaster and turning the coffee pot on. Before he could answer, Belle crossed her ankles and folded her hands in her lap. “You don’t have to tell me.”  
  
“Yes, I do,” Mr. Gold sighed, opening the eggs and cracking two into the skillet. “We had a deal once, didn’t we?”  
  
“You said you’d had nothing more to tell. I shouldn’t ask that of you,” Belle said, pausing to stare at her knees. “It’s just I know you did have more.”  
  
Mr. Gold smiled, watching the eggs cook slowly. “You always did know more than what was good for you.”  
  
“Or good for you.”  
  
A laugh broke from his chest before he could stop it, somewhere deep inside that had gathered dust. “Yes, alright,” he nodded, bracing both hands against the edge of the counter, leaning on his good leg to look at his little love who smiled so smugly, happy with herself. Or perhaps happy with both of them. He met her eyes and took a deep breath, “Baelfire. Bae,” he lamented, letting his eyes drift to the eggs. He plucked a spatula from the drawer and scrambled the eggs in the pan. “Sweet boy,” he murmured, and why had he thought telling Belle of his son would crumble the world about his ears? No, the words came freely. There was pain, oh yes, pain, but her patience and kindness was greater, wrapping around him against the hurt of the words, even small as she was. “Trusting and determined, too brave to have anything to do with me,” he lifted the spatula, pointing at Belle with a sad smile. “You would have liked him, I think.”  
  
Belle drew up her knees to her chest, resting her chin on top and wrapping her arms around her shins. She smiled in return, tilting her head up at him. “I think so too. What was he like?”  
  
Mr. Gold paused, his hand hovering over the stove switch at the question. What was he like? He was... he was Baelfire. He was Bae, his boy. But the more he thought about it, the harder his heart seemed to grow in the stark realization that he had no idea how to answer the question. Swallowing thickly, Mr. Gold couldn’t look at Belle. He couldn’t tell her when it was all too hard to admit to his own mind that he was forgetting his boy’s face or what he had been like. He could recall holding him as a babe, sitting him on his knee as he spun, helping him walk for the first time and teaching him how to be gentle with their humble flock-but Baelfire himself...  
  
Mr. Gold blinked hard, too afraid to admit that he could not remember what his boy had been like, or if he simply never knew at all.  
  
The toast sprang up and Mr. Gold put the food on the plate, nodding to the table. “Come now, you need to eat.”  
  
“Do I?” Belle smiled up at him, uncrossing her legs and hopping down onto the counter, loping up to his awaiting hand. With a lofty air as she held onto his thumb, she twirled her hands teasingly and asked, “Are you going to serve me my meals and launder my clothing?”  
  
“Not with that attitude, I won’t,” he replied tartly. Belle giggled at him, kissing his thumb before she slipped out of his palm onto the table top. He retrieved the butter dish and some orange juice, remembering Belle’s fondness for it so many years ago. He made a wide circuit through the dining room and plucked the paper off the front step, nearly dropping the carton when he saw the headline.  
  
Belle was attempting to tear a piece of the crust off the toast when she noticed his pause. “Rum?” she asked, tilting her head. “Is everything alright?”  
  
Instead of replying, Mr. Gold set the glass and carton of juice down, then spread the paper out on the table beside the breakfast plate and took his seat, leaning his cane against the table. Belle hopped over to stand on the crease of the news as she read aloud, “‘Storybrooke General Crisis over. Missing Mental Patient,’” Belle made an indignant sound at the back of her throat, turning on her heel to face him as he poured some juice, clearly ruffled. “I’m not mental!”  
  
“Do you know if they have any files on you, Belle?” Mr. Gold asked calmly, rising up to fetch himself some coffee. He thought again and retrieved the blueberries from the refrigerator as well, warming down to his toes when Belle smiled at seeing them as he sat back down. “Did you receive treatment? Therapy?”  
  
“Oh, no,” Belle shook her head, stepping over as Mr. Gold opened the container. She hopped up onto the side and lifted a blueberry out (it took both her arms, but wasn’t overwhelming. “No, I never saw anyone except a nurse and one woman who came by to check up on me.”  
  
Mr. Gold narrowed his eyes as he buttered the toast, but remained as impassive as he could. “What woman?”  
  
Belle stopped, mid-bite into the blueberry. When she sat up, her mouth, neck, and hands were completely stained dark blue. She gulped and hesitated. “Well, I... I don’t know her here.”  
  
“But... back home?” Mr. Gold prompted, looking at her closely. She was always better at reading him than he her, but in that moment he could taste her reluctance in the air.  
  
“The woman on the road,” Belle finally said after a long pause. She looked up hesitantly, twisting her dress between her hands. “The one I met- the one who said those things to me...”  
  
It was only after a long breath out that Mr. Gold realized he was holding the butter knife so tightly that his hand was trembling. He set it down, wiping his hands on his napkin slowly and methodically, attempting to line up his thoughts. Regina, of course it was Regina. She’d known Belle was in the mental ward, she had known all along and for some reason that gave Mr. Gold an assuring and _frightening_ sense of calm.  
  
Belle was staring at him, her bright blue eyes watching and seeing every little expression on his face. “You know her,” she said without question.  
  
He only hesitated a moment this time before nodding once. “Yes, dear,” he answered, “But we’ll talk about that later.” They continued to eat their breakfast, him offering her the first bite of everything on his plate. She ate obediently without question, trusting him to keep his word ( _this time_ , his mind whispered). Only a few bites filled her up quick enough, and left her completely covered in juice and crumbs, butter and blueberry stains. Mr. Gold couldn’t help but laugh at her pout as she surveyed herself. “You’re going to need a bath,” he finally said, offering her his napkin.  
  
Belle attempted rubbing at her face, but to no avail, huffing. “Well, a bath would be nice,” she admitted, holding up tresses of her hair. “And a comb of some sort.”  
  
Mr. Gold thought for a moment before smiling slightly. “I think I have something that will work.”


	4. A Little Help

Improvisation was something Mr. Gold prided himself on. So when he took Belle into the bathroom and set her on the counter, he didn’t mind the raised eyebrows she gave him as he filled the butter dish cover with hot water. “This is silly,” she said, shifting from foot to foot. He glanced up at her, his little love twisting her hands into her dress nervously. “You taking so much time for me- you could have just filled the sink.”  
  
“I think not,” Mr. Gold scoffed, setting the dish on the counter atop a towel near Belle. He swirled some soap in the water to make it frothy with bubbles, then folded a wash cloth beside it. “It’s not much at all, in the way of things,” he finally said after a moment, stepping back and leaning on his cane. He glanced around before looking down at her sheepishly, swallowing, “Is there... anything else you could need?”  
  
Belle pressed her lips to hide her smile, shaking her head bashfully. “No, I’m alright.” He nodded and turned to the door, but before he could leave she managed a squeak of, “Thank you!”  
  
Mr. Gold paused, giving her something that was not quite a smile just barely over his shoulder. “I’ll be right outside,” he told her, and gently pulled the door shut to give her privacy. And of course, he didn’t move. In fact, he sat down on the edge of his bed, twirling his cane between his hands and straining his ears for any little sound. His heart was beating almost painfully in his chest from how alertly he sat, waiting for anything to happen. He wished he had thought to move the dish closer to the wall instead of the counter’s edge. If Belle tripped or slipped getting out, she could tumble right over the side.  
  
But those were horrid thoughts that would only prove to make himself sick. So to distract himself he opened one of the old chests in his room and fished out some loose fabric, a thread, needle, and scissors, and spent his time constructively. Nearly an hour later and finished, Mr. Gold was starting to worry that he’d heard no sign from the little thing in his bathroom. He walked up close and pressed his ear to the door, and was relieved to hear her singing-entirely off key, happily splashing about.  
  
Gold rubbed his face and after he moved the doll house back down stairs, he set about getting his own clothes ready for the day. He was running a bit later than usual, having spent a leisurely start of the morning with Belle, but it was still early. The children were not off to school yet, most shops weren’t open and running, and the greater part of Storybrooke was still waking up. He was dressed in his black pants and dark chocolate shirt by the time Belle called uncertainly, “Rumpelstiltskin?”  
  
Sitting pretty, wrapped in the wash cloth with her hair curling like a mermaid, Belle was bright and flushed and pink, giggling up at him when he walked in with a real smile for her. “All done?”  
  
“It was wonderful,” she sighed, wriggling in the wash cloth a bit to secure it tighter around her. He picked it up with both hands to ensure she didn’t fall, carrying her back into his room. She tilted her head back to see him until she was looking at him upside down. “They only let us shower with cold water-you know, before. This was like a dream.”  
  
“You dream of baths?” Mr. Gold teased as he sat her down in the middle of his newly made bed. Teasing had always been a good way of not dealing with things. He didn’t want to hear about her time in the mental ward for fear he’d do something unwise. He didn’t want to upset his Belle. He didn’t want her to think about those things.  
  
Belle wriggled again inside the wash cloth, huffing, “Well it might not be as exciting as yours, but they’re still mine!”  
  
“Of course, dear,” he said, and gently laid the little clothes beside the cloth for her to find. He excused himself while he could and went into the bathroom to attend to his own person and cleaned off the counter while he was in there. When he came back out, Belle was twirling in the middle of the bed, her new dress whirling about her knees. It was even simpler than the first, what little time he’d spent on it resulting in plain if not efficient style, and lighter fabric too, a simple powder blue. It was closer to fitting her as well, and a little white ribbon around her waist helped keep it in place. Before she could say anything about it, he gave her one of the small hair trimming combs he kept. “Brush that nest you call hair.”  
  
Belle gasped, but her smile nearly split her face. “Rude!”  
  
Mr. Gold chuckled, going over to his dresser to finish getting ready. He slipped his vest on, buttoning it up, then began to fix his cuffs when Belle said, “Oh, let me help, please!”  
  
“What?” Mr. Gold turned, raising his eyebrows. His little love sat on the edge of the bed, hair combed back and drying, tied back with what looked to be a piece of thread she’d found from God knew where. He’d have to take a lot of things into account that she would need...  
  
“Just pick me up,” she sighed. When he did, depositing her onto his dresser, she smiled brightly and hurried about. “So you’ll need cuff links-” Belle twirled about and hurried over to the open box, pushing herself up and peeking inside where he knew she’d find them. He just stood, rather sheepish, as she danced about. It took her a moment to balance both gold links in her arms until she could set them down, huffing. “Okay, give me your wrist.”  
  
“Belle, you don’t-”  
  
“Your wrist, Rumpelstiltskin!”  
  
His throat tightened as she spent all of her focus and concentration on attaching his cuff links, fumbling for a moment before she could get it just right. “I like being useful,” Belle finally said as she moved onto the second one. “There’s so few things I can do like this. Just let me help where I can,” she turned away, curiously not meeting his eyes. “Necktie and handkerchief now,” she muttered to herself.  
  
Mr. Gold cleared his throat and nodded down to the top drawer that stood open where he kept them. Belle turned and followed his gaze before smiling brightly and dropped down inside, rummaging before finding the one she liked. He waited, though not entirely patiently, his eyes glancing over to the clock every now and then until she popped up out of the drawer, “These will do.”  
  
Her choice, an odd yet elegant black silk tie with fiery orange embroidery scripted over the fabric, was much too heavy and he could already see her intention.  
  
Belle attempted lifting it, but Mr. Gold took it from her and fastened it quickly about his neck, tucking it into his vest. “Best let me do this one, dear,” he said with a smile. She pouted, but climbed back up atop the dresser and began to fold his pocket square, a bit of multicolored silk in blues and browns, an array of fall colors, as he shrugged into his jacket. He paused, taking a moment to watch her in her happy work.   
  
It was unreasonably endearing.   
  
How she could take to him again so quickly, so easily- how she would even want to he found unfathomable.  
  
“All done,” she proclaimed, fluttering back to allow him to tuck the square into his front pocket.  
  
“Thank you, dear,” Mr. Gold murmured, offering his hand to her. He set her atop his shoulder, only deeming to walk when he felt the familiar tug in his hair.  
  
“What will you do today?”  
  
“Keep the shop,” Mr. Gold paused at the landing of the stairs, for it was true if not the entire truth. “Collect some rent. Harass the elderly, skin the youthful, you know how it goes.”  
  
Belle snorted, giggling in his ear, and he couldn’t help the smile that grew on his face as he set her down gently on the dining room table near the doll house. “I’m going for the day,” he said after a moment, pausing. “But I’ll be back at noon.”  
  
“I know,” Belle smiled gently, swaying from side to side. She tilted her head. “Is there anything I shouldn’t do while you’re gone?”  
  
“Don’t go outside,” Mr. Gold said immediately, narrowing his eyes at her as he slipped his coat and scarf on. “Certainly don’t talk to anyone if they should come to the door.”  
  
Belle rolled her eyes, but he ignored that.  
  
Suddenly though, the idea of leaving her all alone felt very, very wrong. Even locked away and tucked up tight in his own home, it didn’t feel safe not being able to have her on his shoulder or in his pocket. He stopped midway through putting on his gloves. “Perhaps I should just stay home.”  
  
“Rumpelstiltskin,” Belle plopped down on the edge of the table, smiling wide. “Go terrorize your town.”  
  
He sighed, shaking his head and turning to the door. Before he could leave though, Belle called out, “Wait, come here!”   
  
For a man with a limp, he was finding himself to be more limber than in the old world, turning on his heel and stepping back inside. At her insistent wave closer, Mr. Gold leaned down, and Belle bounced up on her toes and kissed his cheek, something so small and fleeting he almost didn’t feel it. She patted his nose fondly, murmuring words he hadn’t heard in years, “Have a good day, Rumpelstiltskin.”  
  
It was a miserable day.  
  
Mr. Gold was restless all morning, limping back and forth around the shop to preoccupy his idle mind and hands from perilous thoughts of Belle getting hurt. What if she found herself trapped behind a dresser? What if she fell into the toaster? What if one of his encyclopedias tipped from his shelf and squashed her?  
  
That was almost just too real for him to imagine, her enthusiasm for scaling the shelves and ladders in his castle having been a problem, and he was nearly out the door and going back home before he could muster the will to stop himself. He belatedly wished he’d taught her how to use the phone. She could press the buttons, even if it were one at a time, and should she need anything, she’d have a way to contact him. That would be a task they’d set out to accomplish soon enough. Restraining himself to one of the various stools he kept behind the counters, he decided to instead read the article in a second newspaper he’d bought concerning the mysterious mental ward patient’s “escape.”  
  
It offered too few details, not even specifying a name or appearance, and what was there was nothing of substance. It had Regina’s shoddy fingerprints all over it, and he knew he wouldn’t have to go far to find Sidney Glass’s discredit in the words. His head was so far up her ass that Mr. Gold often found it inexplicable that they didn’t share seats.  
  
And now that he was alone, a dragon in his den, he could focus on the more immediate issue at hand, that being Regina had lied to him about Belle in the first place. He knew without hesitation that it was her doing Belle had been locked away, and the thought alone was enough to boil his blood and melt away his worry at the present moment.  
  
After all, he was always so much more equipped to handling revenge than sentiment.  
  
There was nothing more he’d rather do than head to the hospital and see exactly the state and condition his Belle had been living in, but knowing the place would be crawling with Regina’s mice, Mr. Gold knew he had to keep his silence on the matter, at least for the time being. If Regina had meant to keep Belle as a bargaining chip or a piece to blackmail him, she would be frantic to find her. Thinking Mr. Gold did not remember who he was would give her the notion she had some time before any reputable damage was done, but the fact that he did, and that Belle had been delivered to him before Regina had her chance to salvage her plot gave Gold the cards he needed.   
  
Yet he couldn’t go after the Queen, not until he was sure he could save Belle from the bit of magic that had warped her stature. That was his first priority, no matter how badly he ached to take his cane to the Mayor’s slender white throat. But it would come, and luckily Mr. Gold was a patient man.  
  
To take his mind off those matters too, he began dusting and polishing some of the items that had been neglected over time. He’d been in the middle of taking an oil cloth to the genie’s lamp when Sheriff Swan walked into his shop looking pretty as a picture, her mother’s fairness and her father’s swagger all in one leather jacketed young woman. “Emma,” he said lightly, setting the lamp upon the cloth and looking up as the young woman approached the counter, the little bell over the door ringing merrily at her entrance. “How lovely to see you. I’m flattered you take time off your busy schedule for me.”  
  
Emma Swan’s face, however attractive, remained stoic and bland in his presence, something that didn’t fail to delight the inner imp in the simple pawnbroker. His less than reputable stunt with getting her elected wasn’t in her taste. That was good; their Savior needed to be a bit sharp. Leaning his hands upon the glass, he smirked. “What can I do for you, Sheriff?”  
  
As if she were about to have her teeth pulled one by one, Emma stepped up to the counter and laid a trinket before him. “I’m looking for information on this old compass,” she said heavily, and he picked it up tenderly, as gentle as he dealt with his little Belle. “Any idea where it could’ve come from?”  
  
“Well, well,” Mr. Gold cupped it in his palm, leaning on his elbows against the display case. “Look at the detail. You know this is crystal, this jeweled setting,” he traced the rim, smiling a bit fondly. “And despite the rather unfortunate shape it’s in, this is actually quite an unusual piece,” he laid it out before him again, letting the smooth metal of the chain run through his palm. He threaded his fingers beneath his chin, looking at the Sheriff pleasantly, “The person who owned this obviously had great taste.”  
  
Emma narrowed her eyes slightly, leaning against the counter, her voice quieting as she asked, “And where would someone like that buy it?”  
  
Mr. Gold, knowing he had her, tapped on the display case. “Right here, of course.”  
  
The subtle change in her features, a softening, a lightening, an almost hopeful look that came into her eyes as she straightened made Mr. Gold want to smile, but he suppressed it. “You know it?”  
  
“Indeed,” Hansel and Gretel’s father was utterly ordinary in the way of the denizens of the Enchanted Forest, but the compass itself had a history of its own that sprawled years before the two lost children had acquired it. A pity it was broken. “A piece like this is difficult to forget.”  
  
“Do you happen to remember who bought it?” Emma pressed, her fingers curling in her eagerness.  
  
His curiosity was piqued, that much was certain. What the good sheriff would want with the two little miscreants or their dunce of a father was beyond him, but he allowed that he’d put their Savior in a few not-so-ideal situations. So, he humored her.  
  
Sighing a smile, Mr. Gold straightened and took his cane from its perch on the counter, “Well, I’m good with names, Miss Swan, but maybe not that good,” he rounded the shop to the register where he kept the contacts, knowing exactly the name to give her that he wouldn’t find there in the drawer. Such silly lies were almost hard to tell without laughing. “However, as luck would have it, I do keep quite extensive records. And-yes, here we are.” As he plucked the card up and held it before him, he paused, smirking at the Sheriff in his hesitation to give it to her.  
  
Emma Swan, the golden child of Snow White and Prince Charming, already owed him a favor, but why not press the bill a bit further?  
  
Her initial iciness began to melt, and she dared a smile, pursing her lips. “What’s your price?”  
  
“Forgiveness,” Mr. Gold said simply. He would need it, he was sure, at least in Emma Swan’s eyes in the future events that loomed so near, and with Belle back at his side, he wasn’t going to risk any loose ends, especially a rift with their hope.  
  
Emma tilted her head. He could see the cogs whirring in her mind, hear her thoughts turning from across the room as she attempted to figure him out. Mr. Gold wondered if she knew how much Henry resembled her when she looked like that. “How about tolerance?”  
  
“Well, that’s a start,” he glanced at the blank card, the name rolling off his tongue, “The compass was purchased by a Mr. Michael Tillman.”  
  
“Anything else?” she asked, shifting her weight restlessly. He’d bet that if she could take flight, she’d be ready to spring off.  
  
“Just the name. I generally find that’s all that one needs,” he said pleasantly, and with her grateful nod she turned and headed to the door. Just as he began to tuck the card away into the contact box, Emma stopped and turned back to him. Mr. Gold glanced up, raising his eyebrows.  
  
“One more thing,” she said, sliding her fingers into her belt loops. “Did you know about the mental ward?”  
  
Thankful he’d been careful enough to recycle the newspaper once he’d finished reading the article, Mr. Gold laid his hands atop the glass pane of the display and tilted his head, pretending to turn the words over in his mind. “Ah, this is about the patient who escaped,” he said with a nod. “As it happens, I wasn’t aware we had one, no. Haven’t needed any of that kind of help, myself.”  
  
“Yet.”  
  
Mr. Gold smirked, nodding humbly, “Indeed. Any leads on that front?”  
  
The good sheriff hesitated in answering, and Mr. Gold smiled pleasantly, holding up a hand. “Right, right, say no more. Good luck with your investigations.”  
  
Emma left him with a wary if not grateful smile as she pulled the door open. Watching her leave, he began to think that perhaps the course of the curse breaking would happen sooner rather than later. Perhaps Belle would find herself full grown again by way of Emma’s rescuing them, and Mr. Gold could finish what he’d started nearly three decades ago.


	5. Of Mice and Maids

Mr. Gold was on pins and needles by the time took out his keys to unlock the front door of his house. The neighborhood was quiet, most people at work and all the children at school since it was just noon, but that simply served to make him even more wary. He waited until he closed and locked the door again behind him before quickly calling out, “Belle?”  
  
The silence that answered put his heart in his throat, and Mr. Gold slowly limped down the hall, though he’d rather tear through the house his a whirlwind find her. He couldn’t bare the thought of accidentally stepping on her, however, so he forced himself to remain calm. He shed his scarf and coat, laying them on the back of the couch, and he stepped into the parlor, which was so quiet he could hear the rhythmic workings of the grandfather clock in the corner. Only when he called her name again did he get an answer, faint but true, ringing from in the dining room, “In here!”  
  
The moment he saw his little Belle sitting on the edge of the table, kicking her bare feet and beaming up at him in front of her doll house did the tension ease from his shoulders. She was perfectly alright, no scratches or bruises. In fact, it almost seemed as if she hadn’t moved from the spot he’d left her in that morning.  
  
“Rum, I have a new friend!”  
  
Then again, he’d been wrong on occasion.  
  
He went very still, his mouth went dry as a bone, asking flatly, “What.”  
  
Belle grinned at him before pushing herself up and putting a finger to her lips warningly before gesturing him to follow her as she tip toed around the doll house. Mr. Gold limped as quietly as he could, following the circuit of the table to see what Belle was about. His mouth dropped open at the sight of a tiny ball of light brown fur nestled in the little doll bed of the toy bedroom.  
  
“Did you know you had mice?” his tiny true love asked brightly while keeping quiet so as not to wake her new ‘friend.’ However she managed to train a mouse in so short a time, he didn’t know, nor did he think he ever would. He blanched at the creature while Belle hopped over to his hand, tugging on his sleeve so he’d open his palm for her to step up.  
  
“Belle, you can’t keep him.”  
  
Her pretty little face instantly fell. “What? No!” She threw her arms around his thumb, holding tightly there. “Rumpelstiltskin, Phoebus is my friend, you can’t get rid of him.”  
  
Mr. Gold rolled his eyes. “Belle, he’s vermin, he carries disease and he co- ‘Phoebus’?”  
  
“I named him,” Belle wriggled to sit comfortably on the edge of his palm, huffing. “Everyone deserves a name, and so I named him Phoebus.”  
  
“After that goofy blond soldier you enjoyed so much?”  
  
Her face flushed an enchanting shade of rose, and her toes curled. “Well-”  
  
“I’m calling the exterminator.”  
  
“Rumpelstiltskin, don’t you dare!” Belle gasped, her mouth falling open, her eyes pleading. He paused, pursing his lips in distaste when she wriggled in his hand. “If you are to leave me here day after day with no way to occupy myself, you must allow me a friend or two.”  
  
Mr. Gold narrowed his eyes in suspicion at the little thing in his hand. “Oh, must I?”  
  
Belle’s face softened, her forehead relaxing and her lips pressing in a line. She laid her hand against his thumb, crossing her ankles. “You were only gone for a few hours, and it was horrible,” she said softly, looking down at her knees. “Please, I-I don’t like being kept away. I know I’m... a liability now, but I promise I’ll be careful.”  
  
“A ‘liability’?” Mr. Gold breathed, staring at the little thing in his hand. That Belle could think herself a burden to him caused the most painful ache in his chest. The most precious thing to have come into his world in over three decades, and she thought herself so inconsequential. With care, Gold hung his cane on the edge of the table, pulled out one of the dining room chairs and sat down, swallowing as he looked down at his little love. “Belle, it’s not that I don’t... trust you,” his breathing was rattled, emotion choking him as he stared at her face, crumpled in confusion. “Regina- the Queen, she took you to get to me. She’s looking for you even now, and I can’t take the chance of something happening to you.”  
  
“But you’ll protect me,” Belle said softly, her hesitance more painful than a dagger. “Won’t you?”  
  
“Oh, Belle,” Mr. Gold closed his eyes, leaning forward on his elbow. “Of course I’ll protect you.”  
  
Her arm tightened around his thumb, and she leaned her cheek against the pad of his finger, smiling up at him. She shrugged her shoulder gently. “Then what have I to fear?”  
  
There was no way he could make his case with her, not now. Not with her so delicate and wholesomely trusting in his power. With a pained sigh, he tilted his head back, slumping in the dining chair. Belle hopped out of his hand and twirled about, loping around to the other side of her doll house. Mr. Gold watched her idly, in no particular hurry to return to the shop or leave her again. Belle giggled and he heard the familiar squeak of rodent. A shudder passed through him, but when the little brown mouse scampered across the table with Belle astride it like a horse, he stared at her, mouth agape before breaking into laughter, so full and from the heart that his sides began to hurt from watching Belle and the little mouse play across the table top.  
  
“He’s quite adept!” Belle proclaimed proudly as she slipped off the mouse, tumbling over herself. The mouse sniffed at her skirt, obviously not frightened of her in the least. He couldn’t imagine anyone who would be.  
  
Mr. Gold pursed his lips. “Rats have been known to gnaw a person’s face off.”  
  
Belle snorted and replied smartly, “You’re just jealous that he can and you can’t.”  
  
At his shock, Belle giggled, sticking her tongue out at him triumphantly as she petted Phoebus’s back. “And he’s not a rat. I think he was just as lonely as I was,” she said eventually, ruffling the mouse’s overgrown ears. “He’s quite loving.”  
  
Bloody hell, he was going to adopt a mouse.  
  
By the time the rodent rolled over onto its back so that Belle could rub its belly, he’d had quite enough and declared he’d make them tea, limping into the kitchen. He took his time gathering the kettle and the tea pot, the leaves and a napkin, and paused at the cups, frowning. His little Belle certainly wasn’t going to drink tea from a spoon. Rummaging in the cabinets for something suitable, his frown began to deepen and by the time the kettle began to whistle, he was borderline irate. There must have been something she could use.  
  
“Rumpelstiltskin?”  
  
With a sigh, he gathered everything onto the tray and limped back through the dining room, lowering for a moment to allow Belle to hop atop the tray, and made his way into the parlor, setting it down on the coffee table.  
  
“Oh this smells wonderful,” Belle sighed, leaning up on the rim of the porcelain bowl with the tea leaves. She looked up at him over her shoulder, tilting her head. “But unfamiliar. What kind is it?”  
  
Mr. Gold smiled, delving two and a half teaspoons of the leaves into the pot before pouring the water in. He stretched his leg and weak knee out beneath the table, groaning, “Well, it’s a black tea. Much richer than what you’re used to,” he winced. “I don’t keep the floral and sweet like you preferred.”  
  
Belle smiled, before stopping as she twirled on the tray, taking stock of what he’d remembered to bring. But her face fell slightly, her hands coming up to twist in front of her. “Oh, I don’t... I suppose-” biting her lip, Belle looked up, not a little rueful. “We can’t have tea together, then, if I can’t hold a cup.”  
  
Mr. Gold swallowed thickly as he watched her, his heart swelling in his chest, rubbing his thumb against his pant leg. He paused, an idea flickering at the back of his mind.  
  
“Actually,” Mr. Gold grabbed his cane and pushed himself up, smiling slightly. “I think I might have something.”  
  
Belle raised her eyebrows, watching him cross the room and open a drawer of the bureau. He left her to rinse something in the sink before coming back, producing his finding for her inspection. Belle’s face lit up and she clapped her hands. “Rumpelstiltskin, it’s quite perfect!”  
  
Mr. Gold smirked and set the tiny thimble down onto the tray. It would be more like drinking from a jug than a cup, but whatever made his little Belle happy, he was not going to bother about it. Sitting back down, he began to pour the tea, first into his own cup, plain pure white with a simple black and gold leafing, and then the delicate little silver thimble. He was sure to drip one drop of honey in her thimble, remembering her taste for it. “And I have quite a few, so if you aim to dash any more of my china to the floor, there are spares.”  
  
Belle gave him an odd look then, tilting her head up at him. “What on earth do you mean?”  
  
Blinking down at her, he set the pot down and realized that- of course. Of course she wouldn’t remember. It was such a little thing at the time, and he’d never mentioned it after it had happened, though she had mocked him for it in her last words to him. He was the sentimental one after all, perhaps, but it pained him a little to know that she didn’t remember. Of course she wouldn’t-a trifle, a bauble, nothing more. He’d never quite felt like such a sodding old man until that moment. Suddenly very self conscious of his ridiculous inclination to keep such a trivial thing, he cleared his throat quickly, shaking his head, “Nothing, dear. Nothing.”  
  
Belle gave him a funny smile before sipping her tea, letting out a little satisfied hum. “Oh, that’s lovely,” she said, wiggling as she sat upon her heels. Folding her hands in her lap, she smiled up at him, “What have you been doing this whole time away from me?”  
  
Mr. Gold froze with the porcelain rim between his lips, blinking down at her. He never had to account for his day before, and it felt like he was confessing more than sharing information. He took a long sip, thinking of how to respond before he sat his cup in the saucer and stretched his knee out once more. “Inventory, mostly. Sheriff Swan came to see me, as she does.”  
  
“Oh,” another odd look passed Belle’s face, but this was not as pleased as her previous expression. She looked down into her tea, biting her lip. “What did she want?”  
  
“For me to look at an old compass,” Mr. Gold smiled to himself. “That captain’s compass from so many years ago. I showed it to you, once.”  
  
“Really?” Belle looked up quickly, her eyes narrowed. She was almost frowning, which threw him off. He was quite certain she would’ve liked a good story, but it only seemed to ruffle her feathers with everything he said. “How did Miss Swan get it?”  
  
Mr. Gold shrugged gently. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” he took another sip of his tea. “But I suspect it has something to do with Hansel and Gretel, being that their father inherited the compass after I dealt it as collateral,” with a side nod of his head, he sighed, “She’s certainly determined to change things.”  
  
Belle looked down at her hands, and she was so quiet, had gone so still, that Mr. Gold felt disturbed by her sudden change in mood. He knew that magic that warped oneself often took an emotional toll on the target, but this was so uncharacteristically like his little love, he was concerned. Finally, before he could query about it, Belle said, “I think I’ve had enough of change.”  
  
“Thirty years and frozen in time might call for a little,” Mr. Gold offered.  
  
“I thought that once,” Belle said, before sighing gently, shifting and taking a sip of her tea. “But now I’m not so sure. The world’s quite different from what I remember and- and I don’t think I like it very much.”  
  
“No, I suspect you wouldn’t,” Mr. Gold murmured, finishing his tea. He knew he should ask Belle what upset her, but the way her shoulders hunched and she bowed her head, he couldn’t bare to broach a subject that was obviously weighing her down with just feeling it. If there was anything he’d learned, she would open up to him completely without guard. She always had. So if she would rather not speak of something, there was a reason, and he wasn’t going to push her before she was ready.  
  
As he took the tea tray into the kitchen, rinsing out the pot and putting the dishes away, he heard the squeak of a rodent and paused, letting out a long sigh before glancing down to see Belle sitting atop her new pet (he refused to call it by a name). “Can’t I come with you?”  
  
Mr. Gold smiled briefly before bending down to scoop up his little love. The mouse darted off under the refrigerator, and Belle pleaded with her eyes, sitting in his palm. “Please?”  
  
“I have a better idea.” Depositing her onto the dining table before the little dollhouse, Mr. Gold went to his library to retrieve a book. When he showed the cover to her, beautifully leather bound and gilded pages, she gasped and put both hands to her mouth. “I kept it, after you’d gone,” he confessed, setting it down near her. Belle hurried to it, and Mr. Gold helped her open the cover. She’d be able to turn the pages with little enough difficulty, though it would probably be a more time consuming task for her to read a book now that she had to walk the length and width of the pages.  
  
“I- I’d almost forgotten it,” Belle said, smiling down at _Her Handsome Hero_. She laughed, looking up at him as she stood in the middle of the first page. “I thought I would never see it again.”  
  
“Your... collectibles are still inside, too,” Mr. Gold said, not meeting her eyes. Belle raised her eyebrows curiously. “Pressed flowers, letters- those things. I was careful not to lose any of it,” he added, looking down at his hands resting atop his cane.  
  
“I didn’t know you’d keep such a thing,” Belle murmured, sitting near the top of the page, her little skirt billowing out around her as she stared at the artwork of the first chapter. It had the desired effect, he was pleased to see, when she smiled. “I’m glad you did.”  
  
Mr. Gold was careful not to look at his china cabinet, a knot forming in his breast as he swallowed tightly, nodding once. “Well, dearie, now you do.”


	6. Tea Roses

It took two days before Belle was beyond restlessness and quite literally crawling up the walls of Mr. Gold’s home.   
  
He had come home to find her swinging from the tassel of one of the curtains on his parlor windows, and when he’d shouted and nearly twisted his ankle running to catch her up, Belle had simply huffed indignantly, red faced and winded. “I was fine!” she complained under his glare. She ruffled her nose up at him from her perch in his palm. “I was trying to let some light in!”  
  
“Of course you were,” Mr. Gold muttered, his voice dripping with disdain before he set her down on the back of his antique sofa that he hardly ever occupied. “Have you ever thought there was a reason why I kept the curtains closed, Belle?”  
  
“Because you melt in the sunlight?” she retorted with as much sass as contempt.  
  
Mr. Gold glowered, unamused, and pretended not to notice her little smile fighting to break her face in half. “No,” he forced his words slowly. “Because I have precious things to hide away.”  
  
“I want to be able to see outside,” Belle pouted, drawing her knees up to her chest and looking down at her toes. “I’ve missed sunshine, fresh air. I hate the dark.”  
  
Yes, of course she would hate the dark. Belle was born into a simple world, daughter of a knight and less princess and more lady, soft and sweet and warm in her demeanor and manner. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t just, it wasn’t right to keep her shied away behind shadowed walls and wood and brocade, not after all she’d been through. Twenty eight years living in a hole in the ground, it made him cringe just to think on it, and chastened that he would suffocate her all over again.   
  
His Belle was only ever meant for sunlight.  
  
With a heavy sigh, Mr. Gold sat down, perching on the sofa. “It’s only for a little while,” he murmured, watching as she slid down from the back of the sofa to land on the cushion. She rolled twice, all hair and limbs before she managed to straighten up, making her way over to his knee in a dizzy whirl.  
  
“But whatever’s done this to me is magic,” Belle huffed, pulling herself up by the fabric of his pants to perch on his knee. She looked so depressed, wilting like a flower. She tucked her hair behind her ears, making a small fuss about it. “And you don’t have any left.”  
  
Turning his face to the side, Mr. Gold busied himself with unbuttoning his suit jacket, hoping Belle couldn’t read his unease. The fact of the matter was- well, he did have magic. Not a lot, barely a smidge, and he couldn’t touch it, not that bit of magic, not yet. It felt uncomfortable to lie to Belle when she was nothing but honest with him, in all things, but he could hardly explain lifetimes of work to her in the middle of a sleepy afternoon-about why he couldn’t change her back, because of a curse, because of his power, because of his son, because, because, because, each more painful than the last. And even if he could, he had more than a slip of suspicion that she wouldn’t want anything to do with him once she knew.  
  
It was wrong, and it was selfish. But it was not the time for the truth, either.  
  
“It may help to know the magic that caused it though,” Mr. Gold said after a moment’s thought. That was true enough. It wasn’t his magic that had done this, so there was no guarantee he could even try to change her back-not without something going wrong. But that meant someone in Storybrooke had magic, and there were only a handful of people who that could be. “But perhaps its source will be able to help.”  
  
Belle furrowed her brow, her eyes narrowing in thought, swinging her legs gently. “It happened when Henry opened the door. Tried to open the door,” tilting her head up, his little Belle cupped her hands in her lap and asked, “Do you think the boy is magical?”  
  
“Hardly,” Mr. Gold scoffed, a smile playing on his lips. He threaded his own fingers between his knees, resting his elbows on his thighs. Belle shared a brief smile with him, but the creases of her eyes still clung with sadness. He looked down at his hands, shaking his head once. “No, dearie, I think that the magic young Henry unleashed was a means to keep you imprisoned.”  
  
Her thoughts were practically audible. He swore he could hear them turning from across the room. It was something he’d always loved about her, the ever sharpening of her mind. For Belle was clever, but she never stopped trying to be more. In the Dark Castle, she would devour all manner of books, scrolls, and even maps. Her mind was her weapon, a gleaming vorpal blade kept deadly by the whetstone of her curiosity. Looking up at him, she frowned deeply, causing too many lines for such a young face, “A trap, then.”  
  
“Just so,” he smiled, pleased.  
  
“So... Regina has magic?”  
  
“I doubt that, too,” Mr. Gold muttered sourly, and shook his head again, this time feeling more enthusiastic, his voice growing deeper as his thoughts turned dark. “She’d be the last person I would suspect, though this was most assuredly her intent.”  
  
“Well-” Belle puffed out her cheeks, looking incredibly frustrated. He’d seen her get this way, once or twice back in their world. He only recognized the feeling because he had shared it-all his life. The unfairness of being too small in yourself to be able to push the world to help you, to make you understand just why things were the way they were and had to be so. Belle rubbed her face. “Aren’t we going to do anything?”  
  
“Not yet, no. Patience is a virtue, in these matters, dearest,” Mr. Gold hummed, holding out his hand. Belle slipped off the edge of his knee  to tumble into his palm. He held her up and gripped his cane with the other hand, standing slowly. “But, perhaps, I can bring the world to you while we wait on it.”  
  
Belle peered up at him curiously, biting her lip as she draped her arm around his thumb, as she so liked. He could see her fighting the sadness, the hopelessness. Crossing her ankles as she sat on the edge of his hand, she smiled weakly, asking, “How?”  
  
Mr. Gold smiled down at her in turn, and tilted his head. “How about a little light?”  
  
It took only a little while for the world to answer.  
  
The first warm day brought a clear blue sky, shimmering with sunlight and fresh green grass, still a bit damp but drying under the shine. After he cooked a hot breakfast for both himself and his little Belle (she had a fondness for pancakes, he’d found, and syrup, though it often left her a sticky little mess), he carried her on his shoulder out the bay window doors that led out into the path that wound around the house to the backyard and garden.  
  
“You have so much space here,” Belle marveled softly, her hands wound into his hair that was brushing his shoulders more and more each day. He could hear a gentleness in her tone that belied her sadness, or perhaps sympathy. No, he thought. Pity. “And all alone.”  
  
“Well, I’m not now.”  
  
A small wriggle against his shoulder and he felt her peck him gently on the side of his neck. Mr. Gold ducked his head gently, careful to walk along the stone path and not trip over any over enthusiastic weeds. “Rumple,” Belle said sweetly, a giggle in her voice. “Are you- are you blushing?”  
  
Mr. Gold cleared his throat indignantly, “Of course not, it’s just hot out here.”  
  
“Mmm.”   
  
Little tart. He could practically hear the smugness and the smile in her voice.  
  
The garden was in an unfortunate state of disarray, so much so that he was almost embarrassed to even show her. The tree needed trimming, the bird bath required a good scrubbing, and the detailed wooden arch was so overgrown with ivy that it concealed the sweetly carved lovers’ seat beneath. Not to mention the overgrown grass and all the dead bushes, flowers, and leaves that littered the pots and beds. The last year had been too wet and colder for longer than he could remember. Even if it had been possible to plant and grow things in that terrible weather, his knee ached too badly in those conditions to allow mobility or access to garden.  
  
“Oh,” Belle cooed, tugging his hair gently. “What a shame.”  
  
“Indeed,” Mr. Gold sighed, both hands resting on the top handle of his cane. “But our falls get warmer before they get colder, so we have a little time. I thought you might like a voice in this mess.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Mr. Gold leaned his head to the side to be able to see her before holding his hand out so she could hop into his palm. Her dress, a deep burgundy sweater that clung about her knees, allowed for her to sit on her heels without having to worry about tucking or fussing with the material. He was learning to take pride in her outfits-it was no well meaning chore anymore, but something he could provide for her comfort and use. And he was learning that his Belle was stylish, but even more so practical. She seemed to favor the outfits where she could move freely without worry that she’d tear the fabric or catch on anything (which happened more often than he had expected). Then again, she was so fretfully clumsy.  
  
“I thought-” Mr. Gold felt his face heat, but persevered quietly, “I thought you might like to spend some time outside. It’s not braving the town, but I daresay it’s a deal cheerier than being cooped up indoors.”  
  
“But...” Belle wrinkled her nose in confusion. “...you want me to...help you with the garden?”  
  
Mr. Gold fidgeted uncomfortably, averting his gaze. “If you don’t want to-”  
  
“No!” Belle raised up on her knees, her hands fluttering. “No, no, I do! I just-you never included me in such matters before,” at his blanching look, she added, “about your estate.”  
  
“No?” Mr. Gold blinked, his lips twisting downward in thought. That didn’t seem right. Why shouldn’t she have had a say in those things, sharing the same roof as him? Then again, he’d never considered she’d be much interested in a dusty old castle full of dustier baubles. Living centuries alone with naught but magic and voices of the past didn’t allow for that kind of consideration, and even if it did, he wouldn’t have wanted it. Why muse on having another person in your life when there was sure to be none?   
  
Mr. Gold rolled his shoulders back, his voice quiet, “Belle, everything here- not just the garden, but my home, the house- it’s all yours. Nothing is closed to you,” he paused, glancing down at his shoes that were caked in mud at the bottom. “Nothing is forbidden from you.”  
  
Belle’s eyes fluttered from his face to his tie, seeming just as anxious, if not awkward in this newfound show of affection as he. They were in love-true love, but they hadn’t had a romance. Not in the traditional sense, there had been no effort to win a lady’s hand or seduce a gentleman’s mind. If anything, he and Belle had simply fallen into one another, which made the whole arrangement that much more delicate, uncertain, and frightening.  
  
It seemed so easily lost, when something wasn’t really, truly yours.  
  
“But perhaps be wary of the things in the basement,” he added as an afterthought, his voice light and forced with cheer. “I may not have magic, but I still have a few... tricks.”  
  
“Oh,” Belle pursed her lips, her eyes gleaming with suspicion and mischief, brimming with questions. “Right, of course,” she nodded seriously, before taking a deep breath and turning on her hands and knees to look out at the garden. With a gentle sigh, she put her hands on her hips and took stock of the landscape for a good long moment before perking up, as if realizing belatedly something was amiss. Turning to face him, she peered up at him queerly and asked, “Rumpelstiltskin, since when do you like to garden?”  
  
Mr. Gold smirked at his little miss, leaning his weight on his good leg and cane. “I admit it’s not a very glamorous chore, dear, but it keeps me busy.”   
  
Pondering the statement, he found it to be true. For a monster who had delighted in the darker arts of magic, potions that could disintegrate mountains, spells that could enchant dragons out of constellations, raise paupers to kings, turn princesses to assassins, stop time, turn it, change it, manipulate the world to dance on his golden threads-he had always found the methodical labors of work that came with the skill of hands, an honest trade, to be the most satisfying. Spinning, writing, whittling, gardening, all things that kept his hands busy and his mind preoccupied enough to not have to think or remember or plan, but not so much that he couldn’t let what was left of his soul try to heal itself.   
  
The notion sounded pitiful, even to his own heart, so he simply sighed and said, “Old, boring work for an old, boring man, darling.”  
  
Scoffing, Belle shook her head. “You are anything but boring, my Rumpelstiltskin.”  
  
With the help of the once golden knight, now turned elementary school gym teacher, to perform the heavier lifting for a reasonable stipend, Mr. Gold saw to it that the backyard tree was trimmed, the lawn mowed, and the leftover underbrush was taken out in bags. Belle had asked him why he hadn’t just asked for someone’s help, but he hadn’t deemed her with an answer to that, knowing full well she would disapprove of his hermit tendencies and encourage him to find a way to befriend someone who would simply want to aid for the sake of being kind.  
  
Mr. Gold didn’t have the heart to tell her that it wasn’t the stock he was used to associating with.  
  
After that, he worked diligently to pull weeds, trim the shrubs, and cleaned the bird bath. It left everything looking very bare, once it was all gutted, but Belle sighed happily from his shoulder. “Like a blank canvas,” she hummed with a smile.  
  
Of course, he’d left the selection up to her. She’d spent a considerable amount of time debating to herself all the pros and cons of planting certain flowers (which would flourish nearer to spring, blooms that wouldn’t irritate his allergies-she’d made him write the list), and once that was decided, they’d gone to the store to buy them.  
  
If anyone thought it was odd seeing Mr. Gold having the young bag boy carry out pot after pot and bags full of gardening equipment and fertilizer into his Cadillac, no one said anything. It was all the pawnbroker could do to keep from smiling, feeling his little Belle squirm in his pocket, her excitement barely containable.  
  
But at home, Belle didn’t have to hide, and that was worth more to the both of them than anything else. Suit jacket abandoned and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, Mr. Gold was wrist deep in rich black soil while Belle huffed and puffed to pull open the seed packets. After he’d loosened the soil with a rake and added the topsoil and compost, they’d quickly made it a process, with Mr. Gold digging the holes quickly so he wasn’t straining his knee, and Belle following after him, pulling her seed packet on the back of a dead leaf, taking her time to drop each seed in carefully.   
  
“How long will it take these to bloom?” Belle asked, dragging her little leaf along the wooden post of the garden. Her hands and feet were bare, smudged with dirt, as were the knees to her blue dress. “And it’s fall-won’t they die, come winter time?”  
  
“No, they will flourish well. Perennials need at least six weeks of hard winter to bloom every spring,” Mr. Gold said softly, dipping his spade into the earth.  
  
Belle blinked, tilting her head. “Why?”  
  
“Well,” Mr. Gold winced as he sat back on his haunches, and reached around until he was able to pluck one of the bulbs up, showing Belle. “The bulbs freeze, you see. Once that happens, they get... excited, I suppose, and there’s a surge come spring. They burst open. You’ll see,” he promised with a mischievous smile that made Belle giggle.  
  
“Like magic?” she asked, pulling another seed out of her packet.  
  
Mr. Gold nodded, his attention devoted to the earth his hands were working. “Like magic, they have to slumber a while before they awaken to their full power.”  
  
“Like true love’s kiss.”  
  
His hands fumbled with the spade, dropping it. “Y-Yes,” Mr. Gold ducked his head, pursing his lips against the smile that melted away at the memory of a bruising grip and a sweet voice cracking with heartbreak. “Yes, exactly.”  
  
It took them all day long to plant the seeds and bulbs, with Belle asking countless questions and Mr. Gold answering her as patiently and efficiently as he could. He didn’t mind the questions-it saved him from having to flounder for conversation, and Belle was thirsting for knowledge on any subject. He quite enjoyed her appetite for information. Working on the basis of curiosity instead of assumption, as most princesses and ladies did, he found in his trade, was a welcome change.  
  
“But why are we plotting these?” Belle asked finally, resting on his knee once he sat heavily in the gardening chair. He had filled the pots with dirt, and was working to loosen the already planted and grown flowers he’d bought.  
  
“The term is ‘potting’, dearie,” he chuckled, shaking some of the excess off the roots. “And I’m potting these because ours won’t bloom until spring.”  
  
“What are they called, the ones we planted?”  
  
“Knock Outs.”  
  
Belle giggled, climbing down from his knee to inspect the pre-potted flowers he’d gathered beside the chair. “That’s such a funny name. There are so many funny names for things here. Toaster, refrigerator,” Belle paused, frowning to herself. “Ambulance was one I never liked,” she sighed, pulling herself up by one of the leaves, scaling the flower. “And why are these so special?”  
  
“These are hybrids,” Mr. Gold murmured, tucking the roots and bulb within the pot, firmly patting the soil about the base but not so much it wouldn’t be able to drink. “They have a shorter lifespan, and require constant attention.”  
  
“Then why are we planting them?” Belle asked, clambering into the petals of the flower, as deep a red as she once painted her lips. “It seems a waste, all that trouble for not much reward.”  
  
Mr. Gold glanced over his shoulder, a laugh breaking from him when he saw Belle half buried in the bloom, grinning up at him. “As you’ll soon find,” he said, reaching down and dislodging the plant she sat in from the pot, his voice lowering, “The things that take the most work are, in fact, the most beautiful,” he smiled at her, his eyes softening about the edges where they crinkled. “Even if it’s just for a season.”  
  
“How eloquent, Mr. Gold.”  
  
The voice alone was enough to chill his blood, but when he looked up and over his shoulder to find the mayor standing on the garden path of his home, fresh and beautiful and dark against the sunny backyard, he felt more fear than confidence. Grappling for his cane in one hand, the flowers bunched in his other, he stood up, shakily until he was standing.   
  
Regina tucked her hands into her light jacket pockets, carefully picking her way across the yard in her ridiculous high heels, giving Mr. Gold a moment to gather his wits. He glanced down at the flowers and saw Belle tucking herself up inside the bloom as tight as she could, her own expression worried.  
  
“Were you talking to someone?” Regina asked, glancing around the garden as if only realizing then that he was alone, and seemed genuinely confused by it.  
  
“Myself.”  
  
Regina set her dark, almost black eyes on him then, but he met her gaze with cool indifference, before her smile broke along the edges of her lips. “Yes, well, you did always like to hear the sound of your own voice,” she mused aloud, her gaze falling over his work. “Painting your roses red, I see.”  
  
Mr. Gold rolled his eyes at her attempt at cleverness, his patience dwindling in the fading afternoon, but when Regina reached forward to touch one of the blooms in his hand, he jerked back, his eyes hardening. “Ah, ah, it’ll be off with your head if you keep that up,” his voice was nearly a growl. “Haven’t we had this conversation, dear, about not tampering with what doesn’t belong to you?”  
  
“Touchy,” Regina raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow, smirking, but folded her hands primly before her. “Oddly enough, that’s what I’ve come to talk to you about, Mr. Gold.”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“Yes, I wanted to make a deal,” at the raise of his eyebrows, Regina smoothed her jacket down over her sleek black dress and said, “You own a plot of land that I was looking to buy.”  
  
“Ah,” Mr. Gold felt his stomach settle, even though his heart was still pounding painfully fast in his chest, tilting his head and narrowing his eyes at his former protege. “Interesting that it’s important enough to bring you all this way out here on a sunny weekend.”  
  
Regina simply shrugged delicately, not betraying anything. “Needs must.”  
  
“Sure you’re not,” Mr. Gold smirked, his eyes taking in her entire countenance, relishing in the less than pleased expression her pretty face melted into. With a gently lift of his shoulders, he tossed his hair out of his face and breezily sighed, “But I’ll be happy to make a deal with you, Mayor Mills. We’ll talk about this when I’m in my office. As you can see, I’m not in a fit state to be handling figures at the moment.”  
  
“Of course,” Regina narrowed her eyes, glancing at the garden again. “What has gotten into you, Mr. Gold? I haven’t seen you this busy in a long time.”  
  
If the mayor noticed the flowers in his hand sway or tremble, she said nothing about it.  
  
“The new sheriff’s woken this sleepy little town up. Things are changing, Madam Mayor,” Mr. Gold ducked his head, inhaling the blooms gathered in his hand. He felt Belle swat him on the nose and heard her hiss, “Stop that!”  
  
Chuckling, he glanced up at Regina with profound innocence that annoyed her no small amount. “I thought I might try my hand at it.”  
  
Regina snorted, an unladylike sound as she’d ever made, turning on her heel and sauntering back across the lawn, “I’ll believe that when I see it. Good day, Mr. Gold.”  
  
Belle peeked out over the velvety red petals of the rose, both she and Mr. Gold watching the mayor disappear behind the shrubs on the side of the house. It was only until they heard Regina’s Mercedes pull out of the driveway that Belle sat up on her knees, looking up at him from under a mane of chestnut curls, blinking in the sunshine, and asked, “What on earth would she want with a plot of land?”  
  
“Something egregious, I imagine,” Mr. Gold said, leaning on his cane and looking down at his little love, literally blooming from a flower. He raised an eyebrow as she reclined against the petals. “Comfortable?”  
  
“I am, actually,” Belle said with a giggle, patting the velvety swath she rested in. “It’s quite soft, and smells divine. What are these called, again?”  
  
“They’re hybrids,” Mr. Gold said, and ducked his head when he felt his face heat under her sweet, questioning look. He’d seen it once, when he’d given her a rose and a bow, repaid with a bashful smile and a curtsey. If it took a million gardens and endless holes dug with a spade and countless flowers to fill them, he would see it done if it won her smile. He sat back down and cleared his throat, letting the tension from his shoulders go, gathering the flower within a new pot, mindful of the little girl within the bloom. “Tea roses.”


	7. Small Steps Down

Something was wrong with Belle.  
  
Mr. Gold had started to notice it only a few days after having taken her home the fateful day Henry had brought her jar into the shop. At first it was little things, things that she’d been more than capable to doing back in the Dark Castle-forgetting names, places, directions. She had always been horrible at finding a place, constantly getting lost and never once remembering how to go back the way she’d come, but he’d noticed that it wasn’t just little things anymore.  
  
Soon, she began to forget the names for regular words. Common things, like ‘tree’, ‘window’, ‘cloud.’ More than once, she couldn’t seem to remember how to pronounce words she’d used all the time before, but it wasn’t until that early morning she had woken up and forgotten where she was that it truly frightened him. He’d gotten rather well at attuning his hearing for small sounds, but her little scream from all the way up stairs still went through him like a wailing siren. He had dashed up to his bedroom faster than he’d moved in thirty years.  
  
Hysteria.  
  
That had been the only word to describe finding her, small and quivering and tear stained, looking up at him in confusion and hurt over finding herself tucked up onto his pillow (she’d so stubbornly insisted on sleeping near him). Cradling her in the palm of his hand, it had taken Mr. Gold the better part of an hour to calm her, soothe her, and remind her where she was, and what had happened. After tucking her away this time into the little bed of the doll house, he wasn’t able to sleep for the rest of the night (chalking it up to old age), so he took himself into his study and organized some loans he planned on collecting at the end of the month.  
  
Surprisingly, one of the names jumped out at him like a snake about to bite. Moe French’s lease was surmounting from a loan to a full fledged debt, and the cringe worthy amount scratched on the ledger that had once been simply a number to Gold made him uneasy. Belle had no knowledge of her father’s current state, nor of his financial standing. She had asked, of course, to see him, and it had pained the deeper part of Gold that was still Rumpelstiltskin to see her yearn for the outside, the world that he could never belong to. But his rejection of her plea to see her father wasn’t selfish (not entirely).  
  
“Dearie, he doesn’t know who you are. If you were to go to him, he wouldn’t know you’re related-that being if he withstood the heart attack at seeing a little person such as yourself,” Gold had told her gently over their tea and their shared sandwich. She always nibbled off his plate, and it was curious that he’d not felt any discomfort in the action, coming from a man who had a problem with offering someone something as miniscule as a pen (though perhaps he’d learned that mistake with a brightly feathered red quill, once upon a time).  
  
“But... you can’t explain it to him?” Belle asked morosely, gesturing with her hands and twittering her fingers. “Use some magic and-poof!-he remembers?”  
  
Mr. Gold had swallowed thickly. “I told you, love, I don’t have any left.”  
  
“Oh... oh, yes,” Belle whispered, nodding uneasily, clearly not recalling a word of it. “Of course you did.”  
  
What made matters worse was that Belle knew something was wrong. He could see it in her little face how upset she was, the internal struggle of not asking for help and to keep what little semblance of dignity she had left in the face of needing aid for, quite literally, everything. She was not pitiable, oddly enough; had Mr. Gold been a man capable of such an action, he wouldn’t have any to give her. She was resolutely determined to be her own person, however small and addled she was. She continued to be the force of will between them, asking questions about the town, learning about their world, and, somehow, managing to send him reeling into a cardiac event with every little stroke of bravery that took her.  
  
The kitchen mishaps were the worst.  
  
Wanting to show her the different foods available to them in this world, hoping it would pique her interest and serve as a mild distraction, Mr. Gold had pulled several recipes from a cookbook he had found in the shop. They’d made spaghetti (with Belle getting rolled over by a meatball), sampled smoothies (he had kept her in his pocket until he placed the top on the blender, of course), and had finally gotten around to baking cupcakes.  
  
“They’re small, like me,” Belle said brightly, pointing to the picture in the book of the tinsel wrapped confection with blue and pink icing. “We could have them with tea!”  
  
“I’m not one for sweets, dearie, but if you’d like to try, I can certainly show you how,” Mr. Gold said patiently, rolling his shirt sleeves up to his elbows. He didn’t bake, but he had brewed potions and curses and spells powerful enough to crumble mountains and create entire other worlds. Pastries did not hold any amount of intimidation. “They’re not difficult to manage. You made us cake once or twice, as I recall.”  
  
“Yes, but not decorated like that,” Belle said, pouting at the pictured fondant coated dessert.  
  
“Food pictured in recipes and advertisements are never the real products, Belle,” he said, bending down to retrieve bowls and measuring cups. “It’s always too good to be true.”  
  
“Well these cuppies will be just as pretty as the picture,” Belle declared defiantly, skipping over the counter to work on opening the egg carton.  
  
“Cupcakes, dear.”  
  
“That’s what I said.”  
  
After Belle had cracked the eggs and he’d dispensed the vanilla (which she’d inhaled and then gagged from), the rest of the ingredients followed suit, and he mixed them up quickly enough to pour into the muffin pan. Belle watched, perched on the edge of the cookbook, with rapt attention in her pretty blue eyes as the batter curled thickly in each section of the pan.  
  
“It smells wonderful.”  
  
“Yes, cupcakes are their own type of magic,” he hummed, pulling the bowl back after he was done, but then paused and looked over at her bemusedly. Holding the bowl out, he said, “Try it.”  
  
“Try it?” Belle blinked up at him. “But they’re not done!”  
  
“The batter’s safe to eat. Try it.”  
  
Belle gave him a very wry, skeptical look before she slid down the page of the cookbook, tumbling for a moment before brushing herself off and traipsing up to the edge of the bowl. With delicate care, she reached out and scooped up a finger full of batter and popped it into her mouth.  
  
Well... perhaps that wasn’t one of his better ideas.  
  
Clearing his throat, he set the bowl aside and lifted the pan. “Into the oven they go.”  
  
Belle grinned, watching him, and Mr. Gold turned to the preheated oven and slid the pan in. Thinking he could simply insert it and be done, the once powerful sorcerer hissed when the side of his hand brushed one of the hot shelves and jerked back, frowning at the swelling red patch of skin now adorning the outside of his palm. “Bloody hell.”  
  
“Are you alright?” Belle asked suddenly, anxious. He turned to see her twisting her skirts, balancing on her tip toes as if the few millimeters might give her a better view of the world too big for her.  
  
“Yeah,” he muttered, shutting the oven carefully. He walked over to the sink and ran the cold water over it, smothering a smile when he saw the little thing out of the corner of his eye bustle to the soap dish and lather up her hands. He said not a word, holding his hand dutifully near the counter as she reached out and ever so tenderly washed the area, her face pulled into an upset pout.  
  
“You should be more careful,” Belle chided, leaning up and kissing his hand, her foot popping up behind her at the little gesture. “If you lose a hand, how will you carry me around?”  
  
Mr. Gold did smile then, ducking his head down as he grabbed a paper towel. He ignored the way his face heated, and murmured, “Yes, dear.”  
  
Belle tilted her head up to him as he threw the trash away, asking, “Do you need a bandage?”  
  
“I shouldn’t think so,” at her wary eye and clear unease, Mr. Gold pursed his lips. “But I shall, I suppose.”  
  
Her answering beam was enough to set him off up the stairs to the master bathroom where he kept the first aid kit. Arranging the box on the bed, he sat down and made quick work of applying a balm and a soft bandage, knowing Belle would huff and puff for the rest of the evening if he didn’t do something about it. He’d roll his eyes at her doting, but then again, she could hardly blame him with the over-attentiveness he showered on her.  
  
Of course, he wasn’t three inches tall, either.  
  
Gold had just finished snapping the first aid kit closed, sighing away the tension in his shoulders, when a loud crash from downstairs sent his stomach in a free fall. He’d hardly grabbed his cane in time to make it out the bedroom door, taking the steps perilously two at a time. There was a metallic ringing that hummed through the entire house until he made it to the kitchen to see the stainless steel bowl with the leftover cupcake batter coming to a rattling stop in the middle of the floor. Smears of creamy buttery residue streaked the hardwood, and Gold stepped through it carefully as quickly as he could, his heart pounding furiously as his eyes swept the length of the counter.  
  
“Belle? Belle?” He barked, already perspiring and ready to turn over the entire kitchen when he didn’t find her immediately.  
  
Muffled and echoing, he heard a small voice call, “Under here!”  
  
Kneeling down amidst the mess in the floor, Mr. Gold frowned as he lifted the bowl up from the floor, revealing a batter coated Belle beneath. She was covered, her hair plastered to her arms and back, sprawled with her dress clinging to her, wiggling her naked toes. She sat on her bottom, as if she’d fallen back startled, and blinked up at him sheepishly.  
  
“Dearie,” Mr. Gold spoke slowly, halfway caught between laughing and giving her a thorough scolding, which he found was the only thing keeping him from bursting into an exasperated rampage over her safety. “What did you do?”  
  
“I wanted to taste it again,” she admitted, pushing herself up on shaky legs, sloughing off some of the buttery goo from her dress. She shook her foot when a persistent glob wouldn’t leave her be. “I didn’t realize I’d dump the whole thing over.”  
  
“You could have injured yourself, Belle,” Gold groaned, dropping his forehead into his other hand that didn’t hold the bowl. He shut his eyes, breathing deep as his heart began to settle somewhat. “You could’ve truly, truly hurt yourself. You must be more careful.”  
  
Belle tilted her head, drawing her finger across her cheek and popping it in her mouth thoughtfully. “Mmm,” she hummed, self satisfied and ignoring his scathing look. “You’re right, it is good.”  
  
Though it hardly matched the time when they’d been sauteing mushrooms, and Gold had left the dish rag too close to the stove. When he’d turned back from the spice rack to see the cloth aflame, his heart went into his throat and he cried out, sure that Belle was in the line of danger. When his little love had popped out of his coat pocket (where she’d fallen asleep during the dicing portion of the preparation since he didn’t allow her on the counter when there were knives or cutlery out), gasping, “Get some water!”  
  
True enough, Belle had survived their kitchen adventures, but with her growing awareness of being unwell, showing and teaching her things of their world was simply not having the alleviating effect that he had hoped for. She grew listless, losing herself in books that he would leave out and open for her to read. He could tell she resented her inhibitions and her literal shortcomings, but Gold had no idea how to help her find that little happiness she was missing, aside from help her to turn back to the way she was. Which was, of course, impossible for the moment.  
  
Those thoughts continued to plague him as the day neared when he would have to collect Moe French’s payment, and Mr. Gold found himself trudging up the steps of his home with a heavy heart. He went to unlock the door and startled when his key wouldn’t turn to unlock the deadbolt, and his veins turned icy when he discovered it already unlocked. With a swell of trepidation, he pushed the door open quietly and stepped into the foyer, eyes narrowed to slits, prepared to find some form of trickery, when he heard a sudden burst of laughter from the kitchen.  
  
A child’s laugh.  
  
Mr. Gold shut the door louder than normal and the voices immediately quieted as he followed the sounds. Rounding the corner, he stopped suddenly in his tracks and blinked, shocked to find a brown haired boy with a bright smile sitting at his counter, and his little Belle traipsing over an open notebook. They both looked up at his entrance, on the edge of giggles.  
  
“Hello, Rum,” Belle greeted cheerfully.  
  
“Hi, Mr. Gold,” Henry Mills piped, swinging his legs from the stool he perched on, pencil in hand as he apparently did his homework in the Dark One’s kitchen.  
  
“...hey, Henry,” Mr. Gold said slowly, his eyes shifting warily between the two. “Nice of you to drop by.”  
  
“I’ve been having trouble in school with diagramming, and Miss Blanchard said that I could write an essay for extra credit,” Henry explained, drawing another skeleton for his words to dissect one of the sentences from his textbook that Belle skipped along on top of. Gold watched his girl twirl about happily, happier than he could remember her being since he brought her home.  
  
“Oh, did she?” Mr. Gold asked, walking over to the boy’s work. He didn’t exactly follow Henry’s  line of thinking that would link his presence in Gold’s home to his English assignment, but he was willing to play along (after all, it had worked out so well last time). “What’s your essay on, then?”  
  
“Someone inspirational,” Henry hummed, his voice light and cryptic. “Real or made up.”  
  
Mr. Gold arched an eyebrow before Belle cleared her throat and tapped at the paper with her foot. Following her with his eyes, Gold read the title before barking out a laugh, “Very good, m’boy.”  
  
Henry beamed under the praise, turning back in his seat and grinning at Belle, who winked at him before loping up into Gold’s awaiting hand. The little lady invited the grandson of Prince Charming and Snow White to dinner, and once the young lad had assured them both that his mother assumed he was having dinner with his psychiatrist, Gold enjoyed a bit of a more relaxing experience in his kitchen as he prepared the food while Belle helped Henry with his homework. She aided him in his essay before she tackled learning the rhyme and rhythm of diagramming to help him understand the concept. It was strangely peaceful between the three, with Henry who’d once skirted the loan shark at all costs and Belle with a true smile on her face. Even Gold himself sighed in contentment as he stirred the sauce for their chicken, glancing across the counter at Henry’s finished essay.  
  
The title stood proudly at the top, centered in Henry’s neat script.

 

_Miss Belle: The Bravest of Them All  
_


	8. Taller Than a Mountain

Mr. Gold wasn’t exactly sure when his abode had gone from the house that the neighborhood children had egged the front door of to an after school daycare, but it had happened before he’d even gotten the chance to try to stop it. After he turned in his essay, Miss Blanchard had not only applauded Henry Mills on the “unique” story he’d written about the bookish woman in a giant’s world, but she’d entered it in an art contest where it had received an award. Every day since, the Mills boy showed up after school on the front door step of the Victorian Queen Anne, eagerly awaiting to talk to the little woman he was quickly making friends with.  
  
Of course, Mr. Gold didn’t begrudge Belle talking to people. It certainly made up for the lack of adventure she was willing to find spending her days and nights with him. After all, it wasn’t that enthralling that whenever he came home, he was too physically fatigued to do much more than find an icepack for his aching knee and a prop himself up before the adequate sized television to watch black and white films (though she did find Fred and Ginger a particular favorite, and even tried to dance in their fashion upon his chest one night as they reclined watching _Swing Time_ ).   
  
Belle was ever vigilant over such matters when it came to his wellbeing, reading his face like one of her books. She could always tell when he was sick, upset, or tired, and she wouldn’t let him get away with it. The night he’d been so unwell, his leg pain causing nausea, she’d climbed to the upstairs bedroom and an hour later produced a powdery white pill half the size of herself.   
  
“Take it,” Belle puffed breathlessly, her hair flying away and her dress dusty and wrinkled as she lifted it up to him. “I’ll be back with the second one, and then a glass of water.”  
  
Needless to say, he kept himself more in check around her after that.  
  
The “great debate”-as he’d took to referring to it-was ever present, as well. Belle wanted to go outside, enjoy the day, see the world and meet the people in it. As much as he wished to give her everything she desired, he couldn’t simply abandon his fear of seeing her hurt. He had once tried to keep Bae safe and tucked away, too, and the moment they’d gone beyond their humble limitations was when he’d lost his boy. The idea of losing Belle again was too much, a possibility he could never entertain. He’d already lost part of her, her memories slipping like stones into a river every day.   
  
He’d removed the chipped cup from his house to the shop the day after he’d realized she didn’t recognize it, the gentle reminder to him, a precious memento that helped keep him company, and the part of Belle he’d lost. But she was still alone and bored, and he was too scared of letting her go.  
  
Her suggestion as an alternative was not any better.  
  
“Absolutely not,” Mr. Gold clicked his teeth. “I am not acquiring a cat, nor any other type of animal.”  
  
“But why not?” Belle pouted, sitting on the roof of her dollhouse, ankles crossed modestly as he worked in his ledgerbook. His study was dimly lit, but he could make out her unhappiness from across the room from his dark cherry wood desk. “It would at least give me company while you’re at work, Rumpelstiltskin. And if you’re worried about a mess, you shouldn’t be! Henry told me cats are very clean, and I’ll take care of it.”  
  
“And how, pray tell, my dear, are _you_ exactly going to do that?”  
  
The silence behind him was like a deafening roar of a wave, and Gold closed his eyes in dissolving defeat of his own sharp tongue. He turned slowly in his chair, smoothing down the royal blue of his tie with shaking fingers, only to find his little Belle gazing down at her hands in her lap, her pretty face pulled tight as if willing herself not to cry. As if she needed reminding of what she couldn’t do, of what she wasn’t allowed to do, or say, or feel.  
  
It had been too long since they’d known one another, since he’d known anyone, and standing up, leaning heavily on his cane, he walked towards her. “Belle, I-”  
  
“I’m not helpless,” she said resolutely, though her voice shook with her teary conviction. He could see how white her knuckles were in her lap. She dared to raise her eyes as high as his tie pin, but no more than that, red rimmed and misty as they were. “I may not have magic or the world at my call, and I certainly- I certainly am without the means of normalcy, but do you think that makes me complacent and dispassionate?”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin stood silently, both hands cupped over the golden handle of his cane, listening and knowing she spoke of more than just animals. Belle stood up, brushing the skirts of her little blue dress as she began to climb down from the dollhouse’s roof, muttering, “At least I, even in the smallest way, have courage, Rumple. It’s not talent and power that makes us last, it’s our will.”  
  
The familiarity of walking on eggshells was bitter, but the knowledge that she was truly in the right had him disgruntled and unhappy in himself. Nevertheless, the next morning saw them both up, bright and early with Mr. Gold folding his newspaper to read at the shop and turning to Belle who sat on the curve of a teaspoon, tearing off a piece of his buttery toast.   
  
“The shop, then,” he said uneasily, and Belle stopped, looking up at him blankly as he continued. “Mind you it won’t be any more exciting than it is here at home, and you’re not to go poking into anything sealed-that includes jars, boxes, chests-”  
  
“Really?” Belle’s eyes shone brighter than stars, and her smile could’ve split the sky, and he nodded warily in the wake of her hope, but putting up his hand, he took a deep breath and planted his feet firmly with his constitution. He glanced down as his hand worried the handle of his cane, the pad of his thumb tracing the intricate designs in the inlaid gold.   
  
“You must not, at any moment, make yourself known to others in the town,” Mr. Gold said, his voice not ungentle but firm. He took a step to sit at the table, keeping Belle’s eyes as she traipsed over toward where he hung his cane on the edge of the wood. “No one else remembers who they are, or where we come from. If they see you in this state, a product of magic...”  
  
“The queen could know,” Belle said softly, sitting down on the edge and leaning her elbow on the handle of his cane. She put her head in her hand, tilting her face up to his. “And use me against you.”  
  
“You could get hurt,” Gold pressed, biting his teeth together on the word, his eyes feeling too intense, the blood boiling under his skin. “I cannot lose you too, Belle. Not when I’ve just found you. It’s not you that I’m worried about, please understand that. It’s the other people out there in the world.”  
  
Belle suddenly scoffed, but her smile was tender as she shook her head, swinging her feet back and forth. “That’s the father in you talking,” she said not unkindly. “I’ve been told that before by my own father, always worried for the child’s safety, blaming it on the world.”  
  
“I can’t pretend that leaving you out of sight is exactly settling for me,” Mr. Gold remarked, lacing his fingers together in front of him in his lap, unsure of what else to do with them. “But I’m old, Belle, and set in my ways. I want to keep what’s mine close to me, for the little time I have left with them.”  
  
Narrowing her eyes, Belle pouted, saying, “But I’m not going anywhere.”  
  
She would, though. She would leave when she finally had her wish granted, when she _knew_ him, his worst fear in the old world as real to him as ever. She wanted to know who he was, or claimed she did, but the blood on his hands and the dust of the hearts that had sprinkled his boots were too many to count. Belle, good and brave and honest, was not suited for the likes of him.   
  
He couldn’t doubt her knowing what she wanted. He saw it in her eyes, heard it in her voice, but what she wanted and what he was wasn’t the same thing.   
  
It could never be the same thing.  
  
The rest of the morning was spent in contained nervous energy with those thoughts muddling his mind, causing his hands to tremble as he fingered trinkets and tried to keep the books. But his pen continued to scratch and blot on the paper, and with every gusting sigh of frustration, his little Belle would look at him with worry and concern.  
  
If her memory was bothering her, she gave no notice of it. Rumpelstiltskin didn’t think she could truly hide it from him, so he supposed she was just distracted by the vast and cluttered world of dust and treasure she found herself in. She danced across chessboards, boarded a model pirate ship, traipsed atop the leatherbound books, and expressed her enthusiasm, both good and bad, over his collection.  
  
“I always hated these,” Belle complained, tugging at his hair insistently, sitting on his shoulder as he adjusted a portrait on the wall.   
  
“Well, I give you the artist isn’t talented, but he-”  
  
“No, I meant those,” Belle huffed, and pulled at his hair gently until he turned around to find what she was pointing at. The set of puppets, old and nearly falling apart, sat quietly and undisturbed upon the counter, and Rumpelstiltskin raised his eyebrows, glancing at his little Belle. “I never liked them, before,” she murmured, and he heard an unrecognizable tremor in her voice. “I always felt like they could see me. Like they were watching.”  
  
Mr. Gold pressed his mouth into a firm line, the truth teeming at his lips and tingling where he tasted it, foul and bitter. His thumb rubbed at the golden handle of his cane uneasily. Turning away from Geppetto’s parents, he limped toward the front of the shop and held up his hand for Belle to hop down into his palm so that he could set her on the glass counter top. “They’re just puppets.”  
  
“I know it’s silly,” Belle sighed, turning and looking down through the glass into the cabinet beneath her. “But they always bothered me. Why do you keep them?”  
  
“There are... many things in this shop that are precious, magical, sacred, or valuable,” Mr. Gold hesitated, stepping behind the cash register quickly to distract his eyes and hands from the honesty in Belle’s face when she looked up at him. “And they all have their stories, with no small amount of pain. And stories are useful to me.”  
  
Belle frowned, sitting on the edge of the counter to swing her feet back and forth. She was staring at him, almost right through him with her blue, blue eyes, and he knew she could see the distrust in him, rolling off in waves. “Pain?”  
  
“...yes,” Rumpelstiltskin shut the register so hard that it rattled, the metallic crash making his ears ring. He tucked his ledger beneath his arm, glancing sideways at Belle without meeting her eyes. “Where there is magic, there must be pain to temper it.”  
  
Turning away, he retreated behind the curtain and into his office. Oh, he knew he was running from her, from her honesty, from her love. He could not force himself to make her leave again, even if she was her normal self. It had nearly killed him before, and he had since understood that there existed a price too high that he could never pay (something that should have been impossible), making Belle leave when he knew, he _knew_ she didn’t want to. He could never make her do something she didn’t want to, never try to persuade her again, but that didn’t stop him from leaving. Even with his leg lame and his old, weary bones that creaked, he was still so very good at running.  
  
Mr. Gold, of course, knew that Belle was just as talented at finding him out. If not tenacious, she could be gloriously stubborn. So it was with unease that he passed the rest of the afternoon, waiting for her to bustle her way into his office, to climb atop his desk and demand the truth of whatever he was hiding from her. He was honestly losing count of them all-the truth that he didn’t know how to fix her, that he would have to hurt her still before he could even try (pain follows magic), and that his great work, that all of the pain that had brought their world here was his doing.  
  
But Belle did not follow this time.  
  
By the time Rumpelstiltskin had steeled his nerves enough to bite down on some form of courage to go and find his little love, he heard a sound that stopped his heart. The sound of the tinkling bell ringing above the shop door-the very shop his magically morphed true love was roaming freely.  
  
Gold had barely managed to grab his cane in his haste to clamber out into the shop, wide eyed and breathless only to find Regina Mills walking up to the counter. At Gold’s hurried entrance, she stopped short, startled at his lack of poise, her eyes widening as he reached the counter first as if they were racing. In his urgency, he had knocked his pen from the counter, hearing it skid across the floor.  
  
“Mr. Gold,” Regina greeted, her usual cool indifference abating in the face of his startling display. It was understandable, since she’d never seen him less than controlled and calm, and she narrowed her eyes in something close to worry but nearer suspicion. “Is everything alright?”  
  
“Y... Yes,” he decided, his eyes flickering around the shop for any hint of movement or any sign of Belle, but everything was quiet and still. Not even dust was stirring, and that only made him more nervous. Holding onto the edge of the counter, he knelt down to retrieve his pen, taking the moment to let his eyes roam the floor when he saw, within the cabinet, the chipped teacup. Curled up inside, his true love was sound asleep, right beneath the woman who was responsible for her hurts. Rumpelstiltskin’s twisted, withered old heart folded in on itself as he snatched the pen and straightened quickly. He forced his attention back to the mayor, swallowing tightly and whispering so as not to disturb Belle, “Yes, of course.”  
  
Regina frowned. “Why are yo-”  
  
“No need to shout, dear, my hearing is perfectly in tune,” the pawnbroker whispered again, an idea brightening his outlook on the situation, limping around the counter to stand in front of her, a smirk lifting the corner of his mouth.  
  
The evil queen had never looked more baffled in all her life, her eyebrows furrowing in both annoyance and confusion. “Gold, I’m not-”  
  
“If you insist on raising your voice, Madame Mayor, I’ll have to ask you to point.”  
  
“W- What?”  
  
“Point to the item you desire, or be on your way,” Gold replied calmly, and it was all he could do to keep the imp’s shivering giggle from the back of his throat. Unshakably aware of his sleeping little Belle just inches away, Rumpelstiltskin curled his hands around his cane, narrowing his eyes. “I’ve a headache, you see. Best to keep the shop as quiet as I can.”  
  
“But I’m not even-”  
  
“Then I’ll have to ask you to leave.” Mr. Gold cupped his hands over the handle of his cane, his dark eyes brimming with his fervency. He wouldn’t have this woman, this spider, this _witch-bitch_ within miles of his Belle if he could help it, and until he could arrange a date that would allow for his spindly hands to curl around her delicate white throat, he was going to keep her away from him and out of his business. The farther away, the less chance he’d kill her and the less chance Belle would lose her love for him, for Regina did have such a talent in bringing out the beast in him. “ _Please_.”  
  
The intent was clear, and the cold remoteness that fell across Regina’s face due to a binding deal was a delight to see, her jerked movements taking her with clipped high heeled steps out his front door. He followed in her wake, making sure the door didn’t slam or break the service bell that hung over the threshold. He folded the sign from ‘Open’ to ‘Closed’ with a satisfied smile. He had always relished winning the small battles between them.  
  
Turning, he limped quietly back to the counter, but to his surprise, the chipped cup was empty.  
  
“Belle?”  
  
“In... here!”  
  
Gold obediently followed her voice to the back room, muffled as it was, wondering how on earth such a tiny little girl could scurry so quickly. She’d made it into his office and had overturned his bottle of painkillers that sat on his desk, looking up at him with a smile as he entered, pushing the curtain aside. “Dearie, what are you doing?”  
  
“Well I can’t do much, but I can make sure you’re not in pain,” she said reasonably, holding up one of the tablets for him. “I can take care of you, at least.”  
  
Confused, he took the pill between his fingertips, and at his puzzled expression, Belle tilted her head, wiping her powdery hands on her dress. “For your headache.”  
  
“Oh.” Mr. Gold stared at her, then at the pill, a knot forming in his throat. Magic, cruel and cold, may have twisted his girl, but it didn’t change her heart. A sprite in the eyes of the gods, she stood taller than a mountain to him, the most powerful man in the world, her heart pouring goodness and mercy and that long thought-to-be-dead magic, innocence.  
  
Humbled in his shame and crippled by her compassion, Mr. Gold took the aspirin without water or a word.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Cy, Sco, and Ched for being such adamant supporters in this idea!


End file.
